WTA: Warrior of Ice
by Black Snapper
Summary: No matter where he looks, he just can't fit in anywhere. Will he ever find his place in the world? A Werewolf the Apocalypse fanfic.
1. Prologue

He tries to open his eyes, but only one will obey his command. He tries to move his hands, but only one responds. He reaches up to check his face and finds only a gaping hole where his left eye should be. He looks at his left arm and sees only a bloody stump with yellow bone poking out the end.

He always thought bone was white.

He looks around. The sky is a blasted skyline of swirling darkness and shattered glass, as though the sky is merely a covering for a nightmare behind it.

He stands on a dusty plain that stretches forever in every direction. In the distance he can see a fight still raging. And he is not alone – there are bodies everywhere, so many bodies that he would be unable to avoid stepping on them if he were to move from this spot. He examines them. Some of them are of people of all shapes, ages and ethnicity. Others are of canine shape. Both of these types are offset by a multitude of misshapen, chaotic forms. Nightmarish forms.

But now they are all dead.

He realizes he is dreaming. He should probably wake up now.

He awakes. He stands. He looks around.

He recognizes where he is. This is a street on the main road, just a few blocks from his house. It is dark, near pitch black. It is clearly after sundown. A streetlight above him flickers on and off, but its pool of illumination is small.

It is quiet. This is a busy road in the middle of the city. There is always something going on. It is never quiet. But it is now. It is completely silent. No birds, no traffic. All he can hear is the sound of his own breathing and his own heartbeat.

He is also naked and covered in blood.

He doesn't remember what happened. He is curious to know.

There is a smell now, an acrid smell. He looks down and realizes he has stepped in blood. He looks behind him and sees a trail of bloody footprints leading off into the distance. He follows them, shivering in the cold and the blackness.

The footprints lead into a deserted alleyway. The hairs on the back of his neck raise and he feels a sense of foreboding. Something, somewhere inside is telling him not to go forward. It warns him not to do this, but he ignores it and continues on.

He steps on it before he can see it, something wet and squishy. He bends down and picks up the object. He can't see it, but he knows what it is - a severed human arm. He gets down on his hands and knees and feels around the ground for the rest of the body parts.

There are more than he originally thought. There are many bodies here. He counts at least nine separate pairs of arms but there could be more. Finally he finds a head. He picks it up and carries it out of the alleyway, into the light.

He looks into a face filled with horror, the eyes dull but still opened wide with shock, the mouth set in a permanent scream. The neck wound is jagged, not clean as though it were cut by a knife. The wound looks almost like a bite wound.

He discards the head, tossing it away as though it's a stone. Its owner is dead now, and nothing can be done about it. He turns away from the horror behind him and heads for home.

A sudden sound behind him stops him. He turns around.

Two figures emerge from the alleyway and walk towards him. Even before he can see them clearly, he knows that they are dangerous. There is something unnatural and terrifying about them that threaten to consume him. Everything screams at him to run away and escape.

He stands his ground and waits for them to approach. He can see them better now. They are ordinary people dressed in ordinary clothes. One of them holds out their hand in a beckoning welcome.

"Come with us," the stranger says. "Come with us and dance the black spiral forever."

He knows they are the enemy. He knows they wish him harm. He knows that to go with them would mean his death.

He smiles.

"Sounds like fun," he replies with a twinkle in his eye. "Sure, why not."

When they leave, he follows after them.


	2. A Bad Day

_So you think you're having a bad day, do you?_

* * *

_Hours earlier..._

Burke, known among the People as the Seeker of Secrets, knocked on the door. "Come in," said a voice. Burke obeyed and entered the room.

The Cairn Elder's room was Spartan and clean, consisting only of a desk and two chairs. The desk was piled high with paperwork, but a gap had been made so that the people in the chairs could see each other. The Cairn Elder smiled at Burke and motioned for him to take a seat.

Burke nodded and sat down. "So. What's this about, elder?"

The Elder glanced at him. She was an old woman with dark hair, roughly forty to fifty years old. In the normal world, that was a pretty good lifespan to be in such a job. In the world of the Garou, she was downright terrifyingly powerful. She had the eyes of a killer and the kill record to match.

She grabbed a letter of the desk and handed it to him. "You know that I've been researching tribe bloodlines, don't you?"

Burke nodded. "Yes, of course. The normal lines of kinfolk have proven exceptionally barren lately, so you've been tasked with finding lost cubs." He glanced up. "What – you actually found somebody?!"

The Cairn Elder nodded. "I did. His details are in this letter I received from the school he attends. "

Burke looked through the letter. "Let's see here. . . Mark Allen, only child, mother and father no known bloodline... no known auspice, no known tribe, no known gifts, no known anything... damn." He smirked, having to laugh at the pitiful state of it all. "We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here."

The Cairn elder nodded. "It can't be helped. These are trying times, after all."

Burke nodded and continued reading. "Subject's personality is quiet and reserved. Teachers report that he is an average student who could be a good student if he applied more to his work. Aside from minor bullying concerns, there is nothing of note to report." He looked up. "That's it?"

"Yes, it is. As you can see, there's not much information. You will need to use your own investigation skills to locate this cub. There is no record of where he lives. We do know that he is about fourteen years of age and goes to this school. He has no brothers or sisters. I have, however, managed to track the bloodline on his father's side, but just barely. He is about six generations removed from the Garou."

"When should I get started?"

"You must start immediately. We don't have the usual benefits of kin branding or anything this time, so we have no way of knowing when The Change is about to occur. Our contacts with the school report no warning signs within the past year, but that could change at any moment. A First Change out of our control..."

"... It would mean catastrophe, piercing of the Veil, certain doom, and etcetera." Burke shrugged. "I got it. Let's just hope the guy isn't catatonic and stuck in a mental home like the last one." He stood up from the desk. "Righto, give me a few shakes of a lamb's tail and ready some lodgings. I'll bring this lost cub back here before you can say Vegemite."

The Cairn Elder looked at Burke in irritation. "Pentex owns Vegemite. You know what they put in it."

Burke laughed. "Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it!" He left the room smiling, confident this was going to be an easy mission, if a little boring.

* * *

It had been a bad day. And now it was getting even worse. Mark Allen dug in his heels and prepared to fight.

Facing him was a gang of about nine teenagers, all armed with knives and cricket bats. They snarled at him, looking more animal than human, as they waited for him to make his move. Run or fight. Get beaten to a pulp either way. They were waiting for him to move, and he was waiting for them to move. It was a standoff. Mark closed his eyes and contemplated just how it had come to this.

In hindsight, yes – Mark was indeed the sort of kid who would get into trouble one day. He was the guy who tried everything once. The legality or morality of the thing generally didn't bother him, really. One time he'd punched an old, near disabled man in the jaw, knocking him out of his stroller, just to see how it felt. It felt like nothing and immediately afterwards he'd helped the old man back into his stroller. Again, just to see how it felt. Again, it felt like nothing.

But generally he wasn't the sort who would openly pick fights and get into this sort of trouble. Life, lately, had been anything but general.

For several weeks now things had been unusual and he'd started to see ... things ... that weren't actually there. He'd be typing away at his computer, playing video games, and suddenly he'd see something out of the corner of his eye, or reflected in the glass. At first it only happened when he was brushing his teeth at night and looked into the mirror above the bathroom sink. Then it began to happen everywhere. Sometimes the things he saw were only vague shadows or opaque blobs of colour. Other times, they'd be animals. And lately, he'd lain in bed at night and dreamt of wolves.

Howling wolves. Hunting wolves. Fighting wolves. Mating wolves. Wolves running and playing and smelling the ground. The dreams would be so vivid that more than one time he actually woke up and howled at the moon before he realized what he was doing.

This was odd. Wolves, however lovely, were not what a fourteen year old teenage male normally thinks of in his bed at night. Nor were they a subject Mark was particularly interested in. Yes, wolves were pretty. They were fierce and badass dog shaped predators who were rapidly dwindling in America, but that was about all he knew or wanted to know about them.

Yet still the dreams came, each night more vivid than the last. And then they started coming during the day, at moments when they were least convenient.

Mark would have discussed these bizarre events with his friends, except that he had no friends and even if he did he probably wouldn't have wanted to bother them with something so private anyway.

He had started to wonder if he was going insane, then almost immediately decided he wasn't. He had firsthand knowledge of at least one form of insanity and this didn't seem to be behaving in any way like it. But still, it was bothering him and interrupting his sleep, which was why he'd made the simple mistake of sitting in The Cool Guy's chair in the canteen at lunch time break earlier that day.

Mark didn't know and didn't really care about what The Cool Guy's name was, nor did he really care that The Cool Guy existed at all. The first time he really became important was when The Cool Guy slammed his hands on the table in front of Mark and yelled in his ear, causing his hot chocolate to spill slightly.

"What'cha doing, FAGGOT?! This is MY seat!"

Mark rubbed his partially deafened ear and sipped his drink. _Maybe if I ignore him long enough he'll spontaneously combust and I'll be rid of him. _Unfortunately, this didn't happen and The Cool Guy, though momentarily outraged that somebody had the audacity to ignore them, was soon back on the attack.

"Oi! FAGGOT! Didn't you hear me?! Wow. Take a look everybody, the faggot seems to think he's cool!"

When direct assault didn't work, The Cool Guy tried his second move – chipping away at the enemy, slowly reducing them to rubble. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, slower and more slick.

"You think you're so cool, Faggot? You're not so cool. You'll never be a cool kid. You're just a wannabe pretender. I know what you're thinking, little faggot. You're pissing your pants with fear. Are you crying, Faggot?"

The Cool Guy pushed Mark's chair, causing the hot chocolate to spill into his face. Mark stayed completely emotionless.

"Oops, sorry. Didn't mean to spill your chocolate like that!" He did it again. "Oops! Sorry!" And again. "Oops! Sorry!"

Normally, Mark would have laughed at the sheer lousiness of The Cool Guy. Normally he would have ignored The Cool Guy. Normally, he would never have sat in The Cool Guy's chair to begin with.

But Mark was feeling anything but normal. He was sleep deprived and angry. So he did something he usually didn't do and reacted. The Cool Guy reached in to push the chair and at the same moment Mark turned on him and hit the Cool Guy with the hot chocolate mug, spilling it all over himself and scalding his hands. The Cool Guy half saw it coming and tried to dodge out of the way, but he wasn't fast enough and caught a full blow in the nose. He was dazed but not very injured and even had enough time to shout. "Ah! You little –"

At this moment Mark went slightly ballistic. Wielding the cup like a sledgehammer and with the super human power of a boy thoroughly furious at the world in general, he bludgeoned The Cool Guy over and over again. By this time the other youths had noticed the trouble and were egging him on. Not because they disliked The Cool Guy, more because they liked to see a good scrap. So Mark kept going until he heard something crack, until the Cool Guy's nose was broken and his cup was broken and his hands were red and raw and the red mist that had consumed him was gone and all the time he heard wolves howling in his head and the half moon shining in the sky...

He came back to himself in the principal's office where he was immediately laid into with the strap – ten whacks upon his already scalded hands. He ignored the pain because it wasn't really important and instead tried to make sense of what had happened. That... that rage he'd felt in the canteen – it wasn't him.

Mark knew that he'd messed up. Not just because he'd earned himself detention for fighting and badly injuring somebody, but because that somebody had friends. The Cool Guy wasn't just the top guy in the high school. He was also a part of one of the local street gangs. And the street gangs always protected one of their own.

So, Mark knew that he was going to get in trouble that night. He knew it as soon as he got out of detention. Even before he was off the high school grounds he knew he would need a weapon. There was none to be found.

Mark knew there was nobody he could rely on but himself. There was no going to the police or anywhere. The police were supposed to keep the peace, but everybody knew all they cared about was eating hamburgers and issuing parking tickets and fines. The moment anything got heavy, every cop in a kilometre radius would pull a magic trick and vanish.

He saw them out the corner of his eye. He knew they were following him. Personally, Mark didn't really care if they beat him up or not. He did, however, care if they beat up his mother or his cat, so going home wasn't an option until later. In the meantime, he would have to sort out this problem.

So he stopped. He turned to face his adversaries, and he waited. One of his assailants smiled.

"The Cool Guy sends his regards," he smirked. Then the gang charged.

Mark hadn't stopped the pursuit in any old place. He had picked an alleyway far from his home for this last stand and he had positioned himself in a corner. Here, there would be no escape, but Mark intended to fight not run. The location would limit the use of the bats, at least.

Mark was not a street fighter. He had fought in the past, but he didn't have any real streetwise knowledge. In the past he had studied boxing and was actually pretty good at it, but boxing was for one on one fighting, not against a whole mob like this. His hands were also a bit injured, but that didn't really bother him. He raised his hands to cover his head and upper body and flattened himself up against the wall.

His enemies quickly realized what he was doing. The ones armed with knives moved in, stabbing straight forward for his vital points, only to instead embed themselves into his arms and deflect off the bone. The fight quickly deteriorated into a brawl as members bashed each other almost as much as they bashed Mark himself. The confined space largely negated the superior numbers of the enemy as well as their superior numbers. But he couldn't fight off all of them. When they saw he was being protected up top, they aimed for down below. One lucky knife stabbed him in the groin and he doubled over in pain, moving away from the wall. Blows rained down on him, trying to force him to the ground.

Then Mark saw his opportunity. Ignoring the pain and in sheer desperation, he pushed off of the wall and grabbed the closest bad guy around the throat, using his forward momentum to throw the thug off balance. They both fell, but Mark fell first, grabbing his captive by the arms and using him as a human shield. The fighters hesitated for a moment, but then began raining blows and kicks down on both Mark and his captive. Mark couldn't deter them all. A lucky kick hit him in the side of the head and he saw stars and he lost his shield.

Now he was in a bad position – fully exposed to the open air and being beset from all sides. The enemies rained down on him and he was powerless to stop it. He was on his back, half blind from pain and needed to move. All he could do was hold his hands up above his head and wait for it to be over. He counted the blows in his head and reached 32 before they finally stopped, panting and heaving.

He felt awful and it was miraculous that he hadn't passed out at any point during the whole encounter. Yet he also felt a strange jubilation. The pain was over and he had survived. He'd lie here until they were all gone, then he'd try to move. If he could move, he'd get home however he could, even by crawling. If he couldn't, well then, he'd just stay here and wait for however long it took.

"Do you think we overdid it?" one of the gang members said to another. "He looks pretty blooming terrible."

There was a slight pause. The whole gang spoke as one. "Nah." They laughed and gave each other high fives. "Now, Let's get going to this guy's place and give his little mommy some tickles as well!"

The gangsters laughed. "I hear the kid's got a cat. I'd like to..." he performed some obscene manoeuvres. "... if you know what I mean!"

"NO!" Mark shouted, clawing at the ground. The thought of what they would do to his cat, his most prized possession in the whole world, made the red mist form inside his eyes. His blood ran hot and he ground his jaws, baring his teeth. "You stay away from them!" He was angry, extremely angry, angrier than he had ever been before in his life. He had probably broken some bones, but that didn't bother him now. All of his pain was nothing. He launched to his feet and snarled at them. "Don't you dare touch them!"

The gangsters laughed. "Or what? What are you going to do, Faggot?" One of them leaned in to throw a punch at Mark's head, knocking him out for certain.

Something snapped within Mark's mind, some ancient beastial force was roaring, encouraging his rage, telling him to set it free. He stepped forward. When he spoke, it was not so much in a human language but in a wolfish snarl. He grabbed the youth throwing the punch by the hand and gripped it with an unnatural strength he had never before possessed.

"I'm..."

Everything was stunningly clear, everything vivid and perfect. His senses were sharper than ever before. He could see everything, from the darkening sky to the smirking looks on the gangsters' faces. He could smell everything, sense everything and hear everything. Nothing was left unnoticed. He lifted the youth clean off the ground, holding him by the hand.

"Going..."

Then he threw the youth, threw him with an over arm throw that sent the youth flying into the air and cart-wheeling before slamming into a far wall with a sickening thud. And even as he fell, Mark's body was contorting and twisting. His teeth jutted out of his jaw, lengthening and sharpening, his fingernails likewise undergoing the same changes. He seemed to grow in height with each step. Where before was a mere five foot four inch boy was now nearly eight feet tall. His clothes seem to bulge and tear, as though they struggled to contain something terrible within them.

"To..."

The smirking turned to stunned gasping as the gang members beheld something that simply couldn't be. Something from their deepest darkest memories had come to life in front of them and their minds rebelled. They dropped their weapons in horrified silence, backed away and turned to run.

But there was nowhere to run to. With eyes like blazing fire, the monster that had formally been Mark Allen leaped into the air, claws extended and snarling with fury.

"KILL!"

Terrified screams erupted into the night.

* * *

Burke had originally planned to rent a room at a local motel and wait until morning to resume his mission, but that didn't seem to be possible now. He knew something was up the moment he got within 10 kilometres of the school. It was a sixth sense, a gut feeling that caused him to stop his car and get out onto the road.

The road was deserted. There was nothing to fear, nothing to cause him unease, but he felt it anyway. Something had gone horribly wrong. He concentrated.

Burke was not a handsome man by any means, but he did at least look relatively normal. Or at least, he did look normal until his nose suddenly jutted out of his face, elongating and transforming into a dog's snout.

Burke sniffed the air, utilizing the Lupus form's sense of smell whilst still remaining mostly in the Homid form. As usual, the scents came in a torrent, too many to distinguish. He concentrated harder, examining each scent carefully

His nostrils flared. There was one scent he knew perfectly well – Blood. There was lots of it somewhere. Somewhere close. He followed the scent, down streets and through residential areas, until he came to an alleyway.

It was too dark to see anything, but his nose showed him the scene as clearly as if it were a flashlight.

"Oh –"

It was a scene of complete destruction. At first, Burke saw only a few bodies, too few for the sheer amount of blood that was smeared on the walls and pooled on the floor. Then he followed the scent out of the alleyway and beneath a streetlight. That's where he found the rest of the bodies, completely dismembered. There had been a fight here, and it hadn't ended pretty.

For a moment he was caught up in the emotions of his own First Change. They flooded through him – nothing concrete, of course, just emotions. Mostly Rage, followed by horror as it dawned on him what he had done. Mind blasting horror that wiped clean everything that lead up to that moment and replaced it with blankness. His mind had completely rebelled at the sight and destroyed everything. He remembered nothing of his life before his First Change.

Burke shook his head to make the memories go away. This was no time to reminisce, there was a lost cub wandering around doing god knew what to the Veil. Burke sniffed at the ground. Where had that cub gone off to?

Then he smelt it. His nostrils flared and his mouth opened, gaping in panic. Instantly he slammed his hand in his pocket, pulled out a small cell phone and dialled a number.

"Come on. . . come on you darn Silver jerk. . . pick up..."

His pack mate responded on the seventh ring. Burke didn't even wait for the Garou to respond to him before shouting orders. "I need you over here, now! We have a situation!"

The Silver Fang on the phone sounded irritated. "Who do you think you are, ordering me around? You should know your place by now. I think –"

"I don't care what you think!" Burke roared into the phone. "A lost cub's just changed and caused a colossal mess, and now Black Spiral Dancers have kidnapped him! Get over here! I'm going after them, but I'll need backup in case there's a big fight."

Now the Silver Fang was interested. "A fight?"

Burke nodded. "Yes! A Fight! A big one! Get over here!" He hung up the phone before the Garou could respond, placing it in his pocket.

He took off his jacket. The jacket itself had been Dedicated, but there was a variety of items inside it – car keys, cash, bank cards – that were too numerous to Dedicate. He left the jacket in the alleyway. Other members of the pack would appear later, cleaning up the mess. They would collect his jacket and ensure its safekeeping. For now, there was more important business. It would take time for the other members of the pack to appear, and Burke didn't want to lose the trail of the tainted Garou.

He concentrated for a moment, then Shifted directly into the form he wished to assume. Fur grew from his body and a tail jutted out from the end of his spine. Unable to remain standing, he fell onto hands that rapidly turned to paws. He had chosen the fifth form, the Lupus. He needed the Lupus' keen senses to track the enemy.

He followed the scent until it came to a dead end and continued no longer. At least, it didn't continue any longer in the physical world. But there was another world, a world beyond that of most mortal eyes. Burke reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and took out a small hand mirror. He concentrated on it, and then stepped sideways into this second world.


	3. Dark Side of the Moon

_Everybody has two sides to them, light and dark._

* * *

"Stay close to me, little cub. This area is dangerous."

They had given him no clothes and no answers. They merely led the way, through the city streets and into the city cemetery. There a third figure had come out of the gloom and the group had become four. That was when an already unusual day took on a whole new level of weirdness.

Mark didn't see how it happened, couldn't explain how it happened. One moment they were walking through the city's cemetery, the next minute they had somehow stepped through the barrier of the normal world that he knew... and appeared somewhere else. It was a sick, twisted version of the world he knew, or thought he knew. It was like his world's bigger, nastier twin. And everywhere, there were spiders, spiders the size of sheepdogs, crawling around on silver metallic webs that crisscrossed the alleys and streets. The sky in the real world had been dark, rendering the place nearly black as pitch. Here, the moon shone as normal, but there was also another moon, a red moon that shone and tinted everything red.

And there were shadows, the shadows he had seen prior to . . . well, prior to today. Somehow, he knew that these shadows were real, that this was their home. Where the cemetery had looked fairly ordinary, if a little morbid, in the normal world, in this new world it teemed with strange beings. Some of them were even identifiably human. Most of them were looking at him.

He also could feel that he wasn't welcome. There was a pervasive sense of wrongness here. He could feel it in his heart, in his mind, in his soul. This place was dangerous and it didn't like him, but for the most part its hate was overrun by its sheer fear. Something in his companions was scaring the shadows, making them keep their distance.

He looked at his three companions. Now that he could see them close up, he saw that two of them looked like ordinary humans, except very sickly looking. The first had weeping sores and rotting flesh as though he suffered from some sort of terrible disease, while the second was completely hairless, a skinhead. The third looked even less human. It was hunched over and moved on all fours like a beast in human form, its hair long and ragged as though it had never been cut. Something that looked like saliva dripped from its mouth, but the colour was all wrong and it reminded Mark more of the venom of snakes. He couldn't even tell which gender it was, and he was only guessing that it was even human.

"Where are we going?" Mark asked the three. He'd asked it before, but he felt it was an important enough question to ask again.

This time, one of them did answer him. "Somewhere safe. Where you'll understand. Where you'll know everything."

This was an answer, of a sort, though it didn't really explain anything. Mark was intrigued.

"Will there be clothes there? I feel a bit uncomfortable like this." He was still naked, though nobody seemed to mind. Maybe that was why this place felt so oppressive. Maybe they simply didn't like public nudity.

"There will be everything you need. .. HE says so."

He?

"Stop shouting!" That was the third one, the one hunched over and moving on all fours. He didn't so much speak as he snarled, like a wild beast. The other two responded by flattening their ears and dropping to the ground.

"We must move quickly, before they come. Protect the cub!"

There was that word again – cub. He'd never been called that before. It sounded like not so much a derogatory term as it was to refer to something young and inexperienced in need of protecting and educating.

Mark knew that something had happened; he just couldn't remember what it was. All that he knew was that he'd had a problem, in the form of a group of angry brutal gang members, and then that problem had gone away, in the form of said brutal gang members being rather dead. Something had happened in the meantime but he couldn't remember what.

One of the three suddenly pointed. "Look. There it is." Mark followed the direction of his finger and saw a beam of moonlight in the distance. It was in the middle of a wild forest that looked like no location Mark knew of. He'd recognized most of the area around him as a sick, mirror image form of the city he lived in, but this part was stranger. Not only did it look different, but it felt different too. Somehow, he felt drawn to the forest.

He followed them into the beam of moonlight until it completely surrounded them. It was like an opaque curtain; he couldn't see anything outside of it anymore. He was also certain that the beam had only been rather small when he was outside, only about five or six meters in diameter. Inside, it stretched off into the distance like a path. The three figures he'd been traveling with began to move off, indicating for him to follow. Mark nodded and stepped forward.

"Dancers... leave here...now..."

He felt it before he heard it – an ancient voice that tore at his heart and filled him with terror. He looked at his companions and saw that they had heard it as well. Indeed, it seemed to have been addressed to them. He watched as their ears went back and their eyes rolled into their sockets.

The third one, the stooping one who was hunched over and moved on all fours, was the first to speak. "They have come."

The first one, the one with the weeping sores, shouted to the second. "He says: Protect the cub!" The three obeyed immediately, surrounding Mark on all sides. They were fully on alert, anticipating trouble. They didn't have to wait long.

For a moment, Mark simply couldn't believe what he was seeing, despite the recent strangeness. They appeared from outside of the moonbeam, their forms blurry, indistinct and grey, but still clear enough that Mark could see what they were. They were dog men – nightmarish vaguely human forms with a snarling dog's head. It was impossible for them to exist, but there they were. They came from on all fours, running like dogs, their tongues lolling from side to side, saliva dripping everywhere.

Even more dramatic, however, was how the three figures protecting him reacted. At first they snarled like slavering beasts, less than human, growling out warnings that Mark felt he should understand, but didn't. The first one, the one with the weeping sores, grabbed him by the shoulder, holding him protectively.

"He says you shouldn't be scared. He says you should stay calm, no matter what happens next."

Mark nodded. "I understand."

"Good cub," the first said. Then he CHANGED.

As Mark looked on in shocked disbelief, the three beings that he'd been accompanying began to transform, their bodies twisting and elongating, their muscles thickening, the hair on one of them growing wild. The third one, the one who walked on all fours, changed the fastest – Mark could literally see glittering white fur sprouting all over its body, through its clothes, even as the clothes seemed to melt into the skin. Gigantic fangs burst through the mouth and huge claws erupted from the hands even as bones broke, and then reassembled into a new, terrifying form.

The whole transformation took less than ten seconds. Where before had stood three people, who were more or less human, now stood three monsters of legend. 9 to 12 foot tall, the first had fur of dirty black and the second was completely hairless. But that was nothing compared to the third, whose fur was clean and a glistening white. All three had eyes of burning red and exuded an aura of menace. The third, the one whose fur was a glistening white, threw back his head and howled through closed teeth with a variable pitch. Mark didn't know what the monster was saying, but it sounded vaguely like "Screw you."

Then they charged, the three monsters running headlong towards the indistinct grey shadows, leaving Mark to stare at the scene in stunned silence, not quite able to believe what he'd just seen. As Mark looked on, the other dog men shadows howled back at the monsters and increased their pace.

The two sides charged headlong at each other – then they met in the middle and began to fight, tearing, slashing and biting at each other with their claws and fangs. It quickly devolved into a melee, with shrieking yowls and snarling. Mark looked on, completely fascinated by the spectacle. This wasn't a fight like the boxing matches he'd fought, honorable one on one duels between two combatants – this was a bar room brawl. But it was as though it was a bar room brawl where half the combatants were only figments of imagination. Though he could see the ghostly shadows inflicting teeth and claw wounds, the three who had been with him didn't seem to be able to injure them back, or even touch them. It was as though they were slashing at thin air.

Slowly but surely, the three monsters were being pushed back by the shadows. It was clear to Mark now that the three monsters were going to lose. What would happen then? He didn't know.

Sudden noises from behind made him turn around, only to find Mark face to face with another of the shadows. This one was so close he could make out the indistinct stripes on its back, hear its angered panting and snarling, see inside its mouth and up its nose.

How fascinating!

One of the three, the one with the glistening white pelt, turned and saw the danger Mark was in. It snarled angrily, fighting off the shadows that were clinging to its fur and its neck, and then lunged for the boy. Mark found himself completely flattened under 180 kilograms of angry beast, but only for a moment as the monster picked him up then rolled, protecting him from the shadows. The monster howled something that Mark couldn't understand but felt he should, and then charged further into the moonbeam, leaving the others behind. It carried Mark in one arm, using its other arm and back legs to run.

But it only got about ten meters before something whistled past its ear and the world exploded with a blinding flash. The monster with the white pelt howled in rage. Unable to see, it tripped over its own feet and stumbled, rolling on to its back to avoid crushing Mark underneath it.

From the distance there came a snarling whine. Immediately, the monster with the white pelt dropped Mark onto the ground, stared into the distance, its ears back. A look of first shock then immense hatred came over its features. From within its throat came a bark of pure rage.

"GAROU!"

Yet another word Mark felt that he should know, but didn't. How strange.

From outside the beam came yet another monster, similar to the three. This one, however, was free of any significant deformity and had fur of multiple colors of brown and red and orange and black and white, almost like it was a nine foot snarling dog headed rainbow.

And it could talk, which it showed by shouting at Mark at the top of its lungs. "CUB! RUN!"

Mark blinked. Again with calling him the cub? He considered running, especially when three more dog headed monsters appeared behind the rainbow monster, this three with fur of shining silver. The monster with the white pelt snarled in rage at the four new monsters and charged into battle.

Mark thought for a moment. He could run off while all these monsters were fighting each other, and start exploring this weird place he found himself in. Or he could stay here and watch the show.

He eventually decided on the latter. After all, who knew when he'd get another opportunity to watch such a sight as all these weird monsters trying to kill each other? He sat down on the ground where he was and wished he had some popcorn.

* * *

Burke saw the cub sit down on the ground and was momentarily caught off guard. He dodged an incoming blow by the Black Spiral Dancer only by the skin of his teeth. Behind him, his three Silver Fang pack mates charged, shouting battle cries and yelling.

"Protect the cub!"

They'd arrived in the nick of time. Only the fact that this place was so far from the Labyrinth of the Black Spiral had saved the cub from a horrifying fate. The cub's fate still hung in the balance, standing on a knife edge as Garou Nation and Black Spiral Dancer fought for him, giving no quarter and expecting none. All of them in the Crinos, the War Form, fighting desperately.

The Black Spiral Dancer with the pristine white pelt snarled at them in fury, its claws slicing through the air at an incredible speed. This was no ordinary Dancer, but one of the elite, the most pure bred who could trace their lineage all the way back to the fallen tribe of the White Howlers. He was not an enemy to be underestimated. A Garou of the Ragabash, the trickster new moon, was no match for him.

Burke stepped back, allowing his Silver Fang pack mates to overtake him. They were Ahrouns, the Warriors. Having three in a single pack was unusual, but that was the way of the times. Right now, Burke was feeling pretty grateful for it. He let the Silver Fangs pass him and instead focused on what he did best: looking for weak points in the enemy's defence to exploit.

The Black Spiral Dancer was good, very good, but not even he could fight off all four of them at once. A lucky shot from Burke (a good kick in the right place at the right time can do wonders!) sent the mutated Garou falling to the ground, snarling in fury. The Silver Fangs moved in to finish it off.

Then things got real.

The Dancer lifted up its head and howled, not like any sort of howl in the Garou or Wolf language Burke had heard of before, but he knew that it was trouble. He realized exactly how much trouble it was only about forty seconds later . . . when TWENTY more Black Spiral Dancers began pouring out of the moon bridge.

Burke pointed at the incoming swarm. "HEY!"

The Silver Fangs glanced over at where he was pointing and saw the oncoming threat. The pack leader, a Silver Fang with years of experience, took in the situation, absorbed it and made his decision, speaking in the Garou tongue. Burke disliked it almost immediately.

"Take the cub and go. We'll hold them off for you."

Burke shook his head vigorously in between grappling with the Dancer, his reply in the same language. "I'm not abandoning my pack!"

"Darn it, Bone Gnawer!" the pack leader growled back at him, "Remember the Litany! My word is law! Protect the cub!"

Burke was torn between obeying the Litany and obeying his inner wolf, which howled mournfully in his head at the thought of such a terrible thing. "You will die!"

"I know, but it doesn't matter as long as the cub lives on! He is the future of the Garou! We will live on in his future deeds! Now, go! I order you!"

Burke felt his ears go back, but the combination of obeying his pack leader and obeying the Litany had won him over. He turned to face the cub sitting on the ground, watching the battle like some sort of twisted spectator, even as he wondered how everything had gone so wrong. This was supposed to be a simple mission and now half his pack was dying!

Save the cub. If he saved the cub, then nothing else mattered. He grabbed the cub in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground, careful to avoid ripping the boy's flesh with his claws. The boy didn't fight him like he thought it would, merely letting him pick him up as though he were a domestic pet. Burke turned back towards the Silver Fangs. "I'll come back for you."

The Pack Leader smiled. "We know. Come back quickly and we may even leave some left for you." Then he turned towards the incoming swarm of Black Spiral Dancers and howled the Anthem of War, with short sharp howls. "FOR GAIA!"

Burke turned away and ran, back the way he'd come, out of the moon path and towards where he'd parked his car. He took out his mirror and concentrated as hard as he could, stepping sideways back into the physical realm.

The car was just outside of the alleyway where the remnants of the cub's First Change still lay. Later, other members of the Sept would come and clean away the debris, removing all evidence and ensuring the Veil was protected. For now, saving the cub took precedence above all else.

"Get in the car," Burke yelled at the cub.

The cub looked down at himself. "But I'm naked..."

Burke was in no mood for subtleties. He grabbed the cub by the hair and shoved him in headfirst, practically throwing him into the car before locking the door. He shouted at the cub through the glass. "Stay here until someone arrives. Don't move!"

As the cub stared at him, Burke turned back the way he came, flipping open his mirror as he did so, then sidestepping back into the Umbra. Hopefully, he could still save his pack mates...

* * *

Mark now found himself in a strange car. Completely naked. This was rather awkward, especially considering he was late going home. There was a clock in the car dashboard that said the time was about 9:30 at night. He should have been home by 4:30 at the latest. It was almost time to feed his cat.

Mark considered his options. The car door was locked, but he could always simply unlock it and walk home. The talk to his mother would be a bit awkward due to being out so late and being naked. Just how were you supposed to explain that?

But then again... this night had been interesting and something out of the ordinary. Why not stay here and see how this turned out?

So he waited. The dashboard clock read a quarter past 10 by the time he heard somebody approach. Whoever it was, they were male and they were grumbling.

"You'll know what to do with these clothes, he says. Look in my car for a prominent feature, he says. What on earth does that... oh?" The voice broke off suddenly and a dirty sandy haired youth poked his head in the driver's side window. "Oh. A cub. I should have known." He poked the door. "Hey, open up."

Mark nodded and reached over to unlock the door. The sandy haired youth couldn't have been more than seventeen, as he opened the car door and stepped inside. He was holding a pair of jeans and a top. "Put these on." As Mark scrabbled to put on the clothes, he took a set of keys out of his jeans pocket and started the car whilst mumbling to himself. "Let's see if I remember how to use this stupid Weaver contraption. Now... which pedal do you press to make it go forwards?"

The youth pushed a pedal. The car promptly reversed, up over the kerb where it was parked, crashing into a No Standing sign and knocking it over.

"Obviously, not that one. Oh, wait...the gearbox!"

This didn't seem to bode well. Mark, now dressed, watched on with interest as the sandy haired stranger spent a few minutes mastering the controls of the car. Eventually he got the hang of it, driving it out onto the street with its lights off. He then began to drive like a maniac, at top speed, breaking the speed limit easily and ignoring all road signs and common sense. Mark began to seriously consider the idea that this interesting night was going to end in either the hospital or the morgue.

For several minutes they sat in silence, Mark simply staring out the window. Then suddenly the man spoke.

"So tell me. Burke given you the Talk yet?"

He could hear the capital letter clearly. Mark shook his head. The man sighed.

"Figures. Alright, listen up. My name's Nathan. You're one of us, kid. You're a Garou. A werewolf."

_You're a wizard, Harry!_

Mark blinked, finally remembering what had happened, what he'd done, what he was. He'd changed into a wolf headed monster and killed all those people. He shrugged. "Oh. That's good to know." Then he turned away and resumed looking out the window.

Nathan seemed momentarily bothered by Mark's reaction, but then continued on. He sounded like he was reciting from a speech, a speech he had spoken many, many times before. "Yes, I know what you're thinking, that's impossible, werewolves don't exist, and this guy is completely freaking nuts. Well, you're wrong. We exist. We've existed for thousands of years. Just listen for a moment, okay? There's a lot to learn and they'll be time for questions later. Right now, we've got to go. There's a lot to do. "

"What about –" Mark began to ask. He was worried about his mother and his cat. Before he could speak, Nathan cut him off with a wave of his hand that caused the car to swerve. Quickly, he realigned the car and continued to speak.

"No questions! Right now I talk, you listen. We're Garou. We're werewolves, you're a werewolf too, deal with it. I'm going to take you to a place where you will be safe, where we can train you to fight. You're going to need it, too – there are a lot of enemies. Black Spiral Dancers, Leeches, Banes, Spirits, Fomori, but most of all the Wyrm. That's your goal in life. To fight the Wyrm."

Mark stared back at Nathan. It wasn't a look of disbelief, it was a look of defiance. Most of all it was a look that said, "No freaking way."

He didn't speak it, but somehow Nathan knew the answer. "Yes you are. Listen to me: now that you know who and what you are, you can't go back to the life you knew before. It's over. Forget about it. Forget about anyone you've ever met and anyone you love, they're all gone, no, you can't see them again. Forget your family – now you have a new one. Give up your old job - you work for us now."

This sounded suspiciously like a cult. Mark wasn't sure if he wanted any part of this. He shook his head, vigorously. Nathan wasn't even looking at him for his reaction, but simply kept on talking whilst driving.

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're the special one. You can still go back, go live with the other people. You can live. But you know what? You can't. I've tried, everyone's tried. It doesn't work. Now that you've awakened to yourself, you can never go back to what you once were. People know. They can tell. They will fear you and alienate you and hate you and there's nothing you can do about it. You will NEVER find a place to fit in with ordinary humans anymore. It's us or nobody.

"You remember what happened tonight, when you Changed? It'll happen again. You'll kill everyone you care about. No, more than that, you'll kill everyone on the planet. You'll doom us all. We'll all die, just because you are a bit too clingy to your loved ones. Can you deal with that?"

Mark nodded. Dooming everybody in the world to a slow and lingering death just so he could live in peace with his mother and his cat? Easy.

"No, of course you can't. Nobody can. What if I told you that the world was ending and that you had the power to stop it? You'd do everything you could, right?"

Mark shrugged. Probably not.

"Of course you would. Well, let me tell you this: you can. You've got incredible powers, strength far surpassing any other being on the planet. Aside from silver or fire or old age, you're pretty much invincible. You're strong. And we need you. We need you to help us fight the Wyrm and protect humanity from itself. So. Are you in?"

Mark shook his head. "I won't do it."

Nathan smirked. "You know, in the past, we'd actually listen to you. We'd drive you home, no hard feelings, let you live alongside the Herd for a little while. Of course, you'd come crying back to us eventually. Nowadays? It's not so simple."

He stopped the car suddenly, in the middle of the street and turned to Mark. In the darkness, his features looked much more intimidating and malevolent.

"We need you, kid. We're dying and we're desperate, so there's no more being cowardly. Gaia has chosen you to be her warrior, and you can't opt out. It's a choice. Either you come with me..."

He held out his hand. Mark watched as the nails on the hand grew longer, transforming into razor sharp claws.

"... or I kill you here."

Mark stared at the hand and then looked up at Nathan with pure loathing in his eyes. "You little piece of..."

"Make up your mind, kid. We can't stay here too long. Live or die. Make your choice."

Mark could feel himself changing, his rage building. Never had he hated somebody like he hated this man or werewolf or Garou or whatever he was. Somehow, he would escape from this life that these people were trying to indoctrinate him into. He would escape from this life and return home and live in peace. He swore it to himself. But for now, he had no choice. He had to live. He fought off the anger until calmness returned.

"Fine," Mark snarled through gritted teeth. "I'm in. Let's go."

Nathan nodded in approval. "Good answer."


	4. New Life

_The past is the past. Focus only on the future._

* * *

"Alright kid, listen up," Nathan said, still driving the car. "Like I said, we're Garou, the chosen servants of Mother Nature, the earth. We call her Gaia. Yes, before you ask, the earth is alive and we're her protectors. She gave us these abilities. Super strength, regeneration, the ability to transform, those are all her gifts. The other gifts are from Luna, the moon. Yes, the moon is alive too. Luna gave us our Rage and our allergy to silver. Yes, just like in the movies. You following me so far, kid?"

Mark nodded, then suddenly realized Nathan couldn't see him nod because he was looking at the road. "I'm following you," he said finally.

Mark was a keen reader and loved his video games, but he wasn't someone who went out to movies very often and he didn't watch that much TV. He knew of werewolves, of course, but he wasn't really interested in them. In his mind, they didn't exist and therefore they weren't important. As a result, he didn't really know much about them at all, so much so that he hadn't even realized the dog headed monsters he'd just seen were werewolves.

"Good. Now, Gaia didn't give us these gifts for free, she expects something in return. That's Chiminage, the art of equal exchange, a gift for a service. That's an important word, and you should remember it. Anyway, what Gaia wants is for us to protect her from the Wyrm. What's the Wyrm, you ask? Well, that's a good question. I'm not going to bog you down in details right now. Basically, all you need to know is that the Wyrm is the cause of every bad thing that has ever happened in the past or will happen to you in the future. If it's bad, the Wyrm caused it. If the Wyrm goes away, everything will be peachy."

Mark stared. He could sense that Nathan was being a bit evasive about this 'Wyrm' thing, almost as if he himself didn't understand the concept. Whatever it was, Mark knew that it was highly unlikely that this Wyrm was the sole cause of things going wrong.

* * *

The car drive seemed to go on forever, for almost half the night. Somehow, Mark managed to stay awake throughout all of it.

Finally, they had arrived. Although, exactly WHERE they had arrived wasn't clear. They had left the city far behind. Now they had arrived at a rural town, surrounded by farmland and essentially in the middle of nowhere.

"Where are we?" he asked as he got out of the car.

"Logan," Nathan replied. "This is the Caern of the Wolverine, the gathering place of many Garou. You will begin your education here among the elders. Follow me."

Mark followed him into the town – if it could even be called that. It seemed to consist of little more than a post office and a milk bar. For a city boy, the place was most unusual, but somehow he felt almost at home here, away from the hustle and bustle. They walked up to a pub, one of the few buildings on the main street. There was a sign in front of it that revealed its name: "The Thirsty Wolf." Underneath the sign was a warning: "No cats allowed."

_I hate this place already, _Mark thought to himself.

Nathan knocked on the door and almost instantly someone responded. "Seeker?" said a voice.

"No," Nathan replied. "It's me, Nathan Bites the Wyrm. I've got the cub with me, too."

The door opened, revealing a woman who looked to be in her early fifties, at least as far as Mark could tell. She smiled broadly as she looked down at Mark. "Excellent! Come in! Come in! We've been expecting you!" Her accent was strong, clearly Irish.

They stepped into the pub. The place looked, for all intents and purposes, like a dump. Cobwebs littered the ceiling and the place was pretty much deserted. It was cold and it was damp. Mark frowned.

"Would you like a coffee?" the woman asked, before laughing to herself. "Oh, of course not, you're too young. How about some hot chocolate?"

Mark shook his head. He did actually feel thirsty, but more than anything else he was determined to rebel in this place at every conceivable opportunity. Maybe they would get so tired of him that they would send him back home and be done with him.

The woman sighed. "No, I guess you don't. I'm sure you've had a hard day, just like it was for all of us. Maybe it would be a better idea to simply send you to bed. We'll have a good talk in the morning." She frowned as Mark shook his head again, crossing his arms. "Yes, I'm sure you've got questions. But rest first, it's late. Nathan, could you escort the young man to his lodgings?"

Nathan nodded. "Yes, Elder. Follow me, kid."

"Mark," Mark replied, still a bit angry. "My name is Mark. Not kid."

"Whatever, kid. Just follow me." Nathan led the way across the pub to a side room. Inside, the room was Spartan, consisting of little more than a bed. Mark looked at Nathan with a dark look.

_Are you seriously kidding me?_

Nathan sighed at the look on Mark's face. "Don't worry, kid, it's not as bad as you think. It just seems bad at first. You'll get used to it. Now, get some sleep. The Elders will want to talk to you in the morning."

Mark dug in his heels and stood firm. Nathan sighed, and then responded by grabbing him by the hair and pushing him into the room, where Mark immediately fell flat on his face. Even as he whirled around, Mark heard a key turn in the lock.

"Good night, kid. See you in the morning." He walked away before he could hear Mark's enraged yelling.

Nathan walked back to the Elder Garou, who was filling in more paperwork. "How is he?" she asked.

Nathan shrugged. "Petulant. Angry. Irritable. Hates the world and everything in it. He's pretty much like all the rest." He pricked his ears. "Kid's being pretty quiet, actually. He must've been more tired than he let on."

The Elder sighed. "I thought as much. I wish it could've been easier, that his relatives could have been the one to fetch him, but he hasn't got anybody. It's hard."

"He'll get over it," Nathan said. "They always do, once they've learned about our world. Then their wolf half and their spirit half kicks in and they agree to join us willingly." He smiled, but then sobered up quickly. "It's not Mark I'm worried about, though."

"Yes," the Elder agreed. "Burke is late, very late. I received a call from him several hours ago, but all he said was that the mission had gone awry and he needed assistance. I haven't heard from him or other members of his pack for a long time. I'm concerned that –"

There came a shout from outside. "ELDER!"

Both Nathan and the Elder immediately forget about what they were talking about as they turned to face the sudden interruption. The door to the pub suddenly broke open, ripped free from its rusted hinges and falling onto the floor. In the opening, two Garou in Crinos form stepped through – the two guards that patrolled the Bawn of the Caern, protecting it and the inhabitants from harm. Between them, supported by their arms, was a third Garou in Crinos form, this one looking very haggard and clearly badly injured.

The Elder shouted in shock and horror. "Burke!" Immediately, Nathan ran towards the stricken Garou, before he could fall face forwards onto the wooden floor. He looked terrible, covered in blood that was partly his own and partly from some unknown assailant. It was not the physical injuries that bothered him, however – Garou, especially in Crinos form, heal really quickly. It was the look on his face that was so worrying to Nathan. Burke looked as though he'd been to Malfeas, the very home of the Wyrm, and stared into its abyss. He had a look on his face of someone who had seen far too much.

Behind him, the Elder was interrogating the two guards. "What happened?!"

"We found him outside, just a few miles from here, " one of the guards replied. He cast a forlorn look at the smashed up door. "Um, sorry about the door..."

"Never mind that!" The Elder yelled. She turned to Burke. "Burke, what happened? Where are your pack mates?"

Burke didn't respond. It was like he hadn't even heard. Since they'd carried him in, he had kept staring at the floor, unable to make eye contact with anyone, whimpering softly to himself. Now they could see that he was twitching randomly, little tics that started from the right side and spread through to the left. The Elder touched him under the chin. "Burke. Speak to me. Tell me what happened. Where are the others?"

Finally there was a reaction. Burke twitched, then began to speak in the Garou tongue, the same words, over and over. "The others..." He began to sway, in time to his words. "The others. The others. The others. The others. The others. The –"

The Elder grabbed Burke by the shoulders and gave him a shake, shouting at him for good measure. "BURKE!"

That shocked him out of it. He blinked twice and looked around wildly, speaking in English this time. "Wha - Where – how –" he tried to speak more, but the Crinos form wouldn't let him. His body began to shift and change, trying to shift to a more humanlike form so he could speak clearer.

"No," Nathan told him. "Don't change, you're too injured. You can tell us later."

"No!" Burke shouted the word in English, following it up with a mournful whine. "Must... Speak...Now!" He finished his shift, transforming into the Homid, or human form. "I have to . . . tell... everyone..."

"Tell us what?" The Elder asked. "What happened, Burke?"

"They're..." Tears began to fall down his face and he deteriorated into a sobbing wreck. "They're gone! They're all gone!" He burst into tears and began to scratch at himself with nonexistent claws. "They're gone and it's my entire fault!"

Nathan looked at the Elder, aghast. The Elder had a horrified look on her face as she absorbed Burke's message. Three Silver Fangs were dead.

"... Gaia, help us all."

* * *

Mark awoke to the sound of howling. They were sombre, low pitched, drawn out howls.

At first he didn't remember where he was. The ceiling and the walls were completely unfamiliar to him and for a moment he thought he was still in his room at home. Then he began to wonder where he was cat was and why it wasn't coiled up asleep on him and then he remembered.

_That's right. I'm a werewolf. I shape shifted into a werewolf last night and killed a whole bunch of people and then lots of weird things and now I've been kidnapped by an evil werewolf cult._

He got out of bed and headed for the door, remembering that Nathan had locked him in last night. Mark couldn't tell what time it was as the room was completely featureless, similar more to a jail cell than a bedroom, with no windows. For all Mark knew, it was equally possible to be 2 in the morning or midday. That didn't matter. He was awake now and he wanted some explanation.

The door was still locked, just as he had half expected. Mark sat on the edge of the bed and considered his options.

When he'd first changed into a werewolf he had felt unstoppable. He'd had the strength to pick up a reasonable sized thug and toss him halfway down an alley street. This door was fairly solid, too strong for Mark to force it down in his current form. But if he could just transform back into the Werewolf, like he had last night...

It didn't take long for Mark to remember that his transformation had been caused by emotions, specifically anger. This was an emotion that he wasn't used to. Very little made Mark Allen angry. Actually, before yesterday and the craziness of the previous few weeks, Mark hadn't really felt much of anything at all. He could watch a horror movie or a romantic comedy and react with the same indifference as watching a blank screen.

Certainly after his transformation he felt different. He would describe it almost as an echo in his own mind, echoing his thoughts with a different interpretation. Mark, for instance, would think: _I'm locked in this room. _His Echo would think: _Somebody has locked me in this room and I should defend myself before he gets back._

But his emotions were still blunted. He could feel anger and frustration now, but he denied it, refused it, and suppressed it. In this time of stress, he fell back on techniques that had worked well for him in the past: cold detachment, logical thinking and intellect.

No good. No matter how hard he tried, nothing happened. No matter how much he tried, he was unable to tap into the primal force that had overcome him so completely last night as to change his physical form.

Another possibility arose, that of the second world. He could sense this second world - It seemed so obvious now to him that he almost wondered why he'd never seen it before. Last night, the three dog-men – werewolves, he now realized – had managed to lead the way into this second world and somehow, almost instinctively, Mark knew that he had the ability to enter this world as well. The question was how. He thought about it for a while, but again realized this option was not available to him. He simply didn't have the knowledge.

That left only one alternative. Mark got off the bed, braced himself, and then charged at the door. He hit the door shoulder first. The door swayed and groaned, but held fast, forcing Mark to bounce off it and fall to the ground. For a moment, all was pain. The pain in his shoulder combined with the pain in his hands which he still had from the –

Wait a minute. Mark looked at his hands. They were completely healed. Where yesterday they'd been red marks crisscrossed with angry welts from the strap, today they were completely unmarked.

He shrugged. _A werewolf did it. _That was a good enough explanation for him for the moment. Meanwhile, he still had to get this door open.

He eventually relied on the tried and true method, banging on the door with his fists and shouting. "I'm awake! Open the door! Hey!"

He had to bang on the door for several minutes before someone finally answered him. "Al right, alright, I'm coming! Man! You'd think you were buried alive from the way you're carrying on!

Finally, the door was unlocked and opened, revealing Nathan standing in the doorway. Mark noticed that he looked quite tired. There were bags under his eyes and he didn't seem to be as attentive as a normal person. As if to prove him right, Nathan yawned, putting his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned. "Morning, kid. Feeling hungry? Want some breakfast?"

Mark shook his head. "I want to see that woman from yesterday. She promised me some answers."

Nathan sighed. "First of all, she is not 'that woman', she is the Cairn Elder and a high ranked Fianna, and thus doesn't have to deal with cubs like you. Secondly, she's busy. Something came up last night that she has to attend to. So you're just going to have to deal with it."

Mark frowned. "I will see her NOW." He gave the older Garou his best and most intimidating glare.

"No you won't," Nathan replied, completely unbothered by Mark's defiance as he grabbed him by the back of the shirt. "First, we're going to eat because it's nearly noon and we don't want you to drop dead from hunger. Then we're going to take you to see the Den Mother. She's the one who looks after cubs around here. You can interrogate her if you must interrogate somebody. Now come on." He began to push Mark in the direction of the main room of the pub. Mark crossed his arms over his chest in the typical look of a disgruntled teenager, but allowed himself to be 'escorted' out.

In the daytime, the pub was much more lively, though still a dump. It was fully staffed and filled with people... if you could call them people. Most of them seemed to be ordinary humans, but there were also werewolves walking around, as well as a couple of ordinary wolves. Some of them were drinking alcohol in mugs, whilst others were eating what looked to be lunch. Mark stared at the busy area and felt distinctly uncomfortable. He was not a people person and preferred to be on his own wherever possible.

Nathan, however, was completely unperturbed. He strode right up to the bartender and banged on the counter. "Barkeep! Some breakfast for the new cub here." The barkeep nodded and brought out a plate of food and a cup. It was only when Mark saw it close up that he realized it was a plate of chicken and a cup of water. The chicken was cooked rare. Really rare. It was still pink on the outside.

_Chicken for breakfast?_

Nathan helped Mark to his chair by forcing him to sit down on it. "Eat," he ordered.

Mark sighed and tried to obey. He had actually been pretty hungry, having missed dinner last night and not eaten anything since lunch time at school yesterday, but now that he was in this crowded room his appetite had deserted him. He also didn't like to be the centre of attention, but from the sounds of the conversation around him, it appeared that he was.

"Look... that's the lost cub the Elder talked about yesterday."

"Did you hear? The Ragabash messed up the mission and got three Silver Fangs killed!"

"I heard Burke abandoned his pack! I knew those Bone Gnawers couldn't be relied on!"

"Three Silver Fangs died for him?! He'd better be a pretty amazing Garou or they'll be trouble."

"Kid," Nathan said from across the table. "You're not eating."

Mark glanced down at his food, mostly untouched. He pushed it away from him with a look of resignation. "I'm not hungry." He got up from the chair, anxious to leave this place of strangers.

Nathan shrugged. "Suit yourself. Go ahead and explore the place, look around, meet some people. If you need more, I'll be here."

That was all Mark needed. He left the pub, hoping to find a way out of this miserable place. Behind him, Nathan reached for the discarded plate of chicken and began to eat from it.

"Waste not, want not..."

* * *

"Concentrate," the Garou ordered him. "You need to give in to your Rage, but not completely. Harness it and use it as a weapon to change your form."

Mark shrugged and tried to obey, even though he sensed the elder Garou didn't understand him at all. Nothing happened. _This isn't working_, he thought to himself. He sighed. "What am I doing wrong?" he asked, more to himself than to the other Garou.

"You're still thinking like a human. You need to think like a wolf, like an animal. Don't deny your anger, use it."

Mum blinked. "I'm not angry."

The elder smiled. "Yes you are – we all are. You just aren't in tune with it yet. Practice harder."

_Get angry_ _- but not too angry_. He concentrated again on things he didn't like. Babies. Girls shrieking like baby eagles. Loud noises. People in authority who used their authority like idiots. Corrupt people. Crowds. Crowds of screaming bawling people. Riots.

"Remember the night you first changed. The change is caused by Rage, so you obviously have some in you somewhere. How did you feel that night? What triggered your Rage?"

He remembered the night he first changed – how he'd felt when they were kicking and stabbing and hitting him.

"How did it make you feel?"

"Sore." Mark had felt very sore. Being hurt wasn't very fun.

_It doesn't matter what you think. Nothing you think or do will change things in any way_.

"You probably wanted them to do something else, didn't you? But you were powerless to stop them, right?"

Well, of course he was powerless to stop them. Superior numbers and weapons, of course. There's no point in being angry about it.

"Being angry won't change anything," he whispered. He knew the mantra by heart, had heard it repeated enough.

The elder Garou laughed. "Maybe it didn't in your old life – but this is a new one. Now being angry changes everything. It changes your form, your surroundings – everything!"

Mark understood now. He needed to think differently. But still, it was difficult. What was he angry about? The answer was: not a lot. About the only thing Mark had really been angry about was Nathan abducting him and admitting him into this cult of werewolves. That had made Mark really angry, but he hadn't been angry for long.

On that first day at Logan, Mark had spent the first opportunity he had trying to escape. It had quickly proven futile. Logan was quite literally at the edge of absolute nowhere, a desolate land with nothing really in any direction for hundreds of kilometres. It really was the perfect place for somebody to completely disappear and never be seen again.

"I guess I can't do it," he said finally.

The elder Garou smiled. "Yes, you can. You've done it before. Keep trying, and you'll be able to."

Nathan poked his head in the door to the room where Mark was being educated. "How's our little lost cub doing?"

The elder Garou sighed. "Not very well, at the moment. Hmm... perhaps you can be of assistance, Nathan. He needs some... motivation."

Nathan grinned. "Awesome." He strode into the room and began poking Mark in the tummy. "Hey, CUB! You think you're so cool, calm and collected? You think you're a special little snowflake? Well, you're not! You're a loser! A lousy, stinking, good for nothing loser!"

Mark nodded to himself. _That's what they all say._

Nathan was still going. "What's the matter? Why can't you change form? Don't you know how simple that is for us Garou to do? Watch me..."

As Mark watched, Nathan shifted. His feet changed into paws, a tail grew out from behind him and he fell down to all fours. Where before there was a sandy haired youth growling at him, now there was a sandy haired wolf. The wolf circled Mark a few times, its tail tall, as occasionally it charged in and snapped at him, teasing him. Mark watched the wolf silently, completely expressionless. After a few seconds, the wolf shifted back into Nathan's normal human form.

Complete with clothes. Mark was impressed. _I wonder how he did that._

"Come on! Only losers and idiots have trouble shifting!" Nathan sneered. "Or maybe you're not a real Garou. Maybe you're not a werewolf, but a were-mutt. A were-mongrel. That's all you are. Just a freak!"

Mark nodded to himself. _I've heard that before, too. Well, not the were-mutt part, but certainly I've been called a freak. _He could hear the children at his primary school chanting the word. _Freak! Freak! Freak!_

Nathan kept going, but nothing really bothered Mark. That was, however, until Nathan mentioned Mark's CAT. Specifically, said pet doing something abnormal with Mark's mother. That got Mark irritated. He glared at Nathan and stood up to yell and at that moment he shifted. Only this time, he was both aware of it occurring and could feel it occurring.

AND IT HURT.

"A... Aaaaahh!"

He couldn't help it – he cried out in pain. He could FEEL his bones breaking and his skin tearing and his organs reshaping themselves as his body changed shape both outwardly and within. He coiled up into a ball, lying on his side and flailing. Distantly, he could hear shouts of encouragement but the words were covered by a whooshing hiss in his ears.

Then suddenly the pain eased and was gone, though the memory still lingered. Mark tried to hold his head but found his arms wouldn't bend in the correct direction.

"Wake up, kid. You did it."

The noise was blaringly loud, sounding like a whisper but at the volume of a high pitched scream. Mark moaned. _Never again. I'm never doing this ever again. As soon as I can, I'm getting out of this place and going home and I'm going to massacre any Werewolf or Garou or whatever that comes near me. Never again._

"What do you think?" asked another voice, one Mark dimly identified as the Garou elder.

"Hmm. Well, let's put it this way: a Silver Fang he most assuredly isn't." There was a chuckle that pounded inside Mark's skull. "I only said he was a were-mutt to get him angry, but... well... just look at him!"

Mark whimpered. Slowly, the feeling in his limbs began to return and he realized that he was no longer in his own body, but that of a dog. No, a wolf. It was a terrible feeling and he felt absolutely horrible.

_Never again._

* * *

One older Garou of the Sept spoke to another. "What do you think of the cubs this year?"

The other elder sighed. "There are so few these days that I fear the End Times are truly upon us. If they are the future, then I fear for us all."

The first shook his head. "No, don't be like that. Look on the positives. Some of the cubs are very promising and have the potential to be excellent Garou."

The second scoffed. "Do they? I only see Metis freaks and arrogant cubs. So many Metis!"

"And what of Mark?"

There was a long pause. "Oh... the lost cub. What's the situation on him? Last I heard they were still squabbling over his tribe."

"They're squabbling over everything – even his auspice. They can't figure out whether he is a Philodox or a Theurge or even a Ragabash."

"And what of his tribe? Has anybody made any claims?"

"I'd say that's mostly been sorted out by now. The only tribe that made a claim on him is the Bone Gnawers, and that's only because it was a Bone Gnawer who found him. Let's face it, they'll take anybody. Even the weirdos."

"Are you insinuating that Mark is a weirdo?"

"'I'm just saying. There's something strange about him... something unnatural. And when I say that when I'm personally capable of turning into a nine foot walking death beast, I mean that there's something _UNNATURAL _about him. I don't know what it is, but we should probably keep an eye on him."


	5. The Rules

Chapter Four

_Rules are made to be twisted, bent and broken._

* * *

In the end, it took Mark nearly three years before he could control his transformations sufficiently enough to shift on command. Even then, he never really got very good at it. Other werewolves could switch directly to certain forms or even change only parts of their bodies, but Mark had to do it step by step, transitioning through all the forms in between until he got to the desired one. This took time and was quite inefficient.

There were five separate transformations that he had learnt, covering the full spectrum from human to wolf. The first, the Homid form, was the one he was best at. Then there was the Glabro, or near man form. In this form, Mark grew about a foot in height and doubled his body mass. His teeth and nails grew long and sharp, and he grew sandy yellow hair all over his body. He couldn't stand up straight in this form, so he hunched over and generally looked like a living Neanderthal with the vocabulary to match.

The third was the Crinos form, a 9 foot tall half man half wolf covered in fur with a tail. It inflicted terror on any non supernatural who saw it, causing them to flee in fear and later try to rationalize what they saw as something other than supernatural. When Mark asked why that happened, all he got was some awkward looks and a hasty answer.

"The Crinos form is scary because it's really ugly. That's all."

In the Crinos form, Mark couldn't speak English or any other human language aside from a few words. "You die!" or "Hungry!" Basically, nothing more than two syllables long. However, there was another language they taught him, the Garou tongue, which consisted of tail movements, body language and vocal growls, howls and snarls. Again, it took a long time for Mark to learn the language, something which he apparently should have known near instinctively.

Next was the Hispo, or Dire Wolf form, looking much like a prehistoric wolf that was the size of a small horse. Finally, there was the Lupus, or wolf form. Mark's personal Lupus form actually looked nothing like a wolf at all. It was closer to a shaggy yellow/red cattle dog. A mangy one.

During this time, Mark also learnt about that mysterious other world he'd found himself in. It was called the Penumbra. There were apparently lots of different worlds, but the Penumbra was the world he was most associated with. The logic and mathematics involved in describing the Penumbra and why it existed had given Mark a terrible headache, so his teachers decided to keep it simple. In the Penumbra, a Garou could interact with the spirits of physical objects, such as trees and animals. The Garou were friends with the spirits and could gain services for favours – Chiminage, or the art of equal exchange. Mark also learned how to access this second world, through a process his teachers called Reaching, or "Stepping Sideways."

Most Garou simply had to concentrate and they could do this – some could even do it without concentrating at all – but Mark found he had to use a reflective surface, such as water or a mirror, before he could do it at all. Even then it took time. Every time he tried it, he would find himself confronting some sort of barrier between the worlds that he had to first break. His teachers told him this was the Gauntlet and that it existed because of humanity.

Thus was Mark's first hint that Garou didn't like humans. At all.

But you couldn't stay in the Penumbra for very long. Depending on how you entered it, you only had a small period of time before you would be attacked by the shadowy striped werewolves. His teachers called them the guardians of the penumbra. When he asked them to go into greater detail, however, they simply looked at him awkwardly and tried to change the subject.

"They are the guardians of the Penumbra and they are dangerous. That is all you need to know."

_That is all you need to know_. Over the three years of his education he heard this phrase a lot and he soon learned to dread it. Mark was not a talkative person but he was a big thinker, always wondering about things and the reason for that thing existing and how it worked and everything about it.

For the first three years, Mark spent the time almost entirely on his own. A Garou that couldn't control his transformations and could transform into a 9 foot walking death beast at the drop of a hat was dangerous to be around. As a result, Mark spent almost all of his time with one or two elder Garou teachers when he was being educated in the Garou ways.

When he wasn't, he spent his time alone, trying to come up with plans to escape. So far, he hadn't come up with a good enough plan. Logan was a place literally in the middle of nowhere. The only access to the place was by car, and even then you needed to drive for a good six hours before you reached the city. More than that, Mark quickly learned that everybody who lived in Logan was either a Garou themselves, or closely related to a Garou, called a Kinfolk. In other words, they were all in on the cult and refused to let Mark leave the place. Even in this new Penumbra world he couldn't escape, for the Garou had spies there as well. Besides, if you were in there too long the guardians of the Penumbra would get you.

Mark couldn't tell if he was taking an unusually long time to learn the basics of Garou or life or not. His teachers never told him. However, he quickly found out that Garou were really bad at hiding their emotions. They were extremely emotional beings and whatever they felt was very easily expressed. Mark had noticed that his teachers seemed to be frequently quite frustrated with him. They also called him "cub" a lot, as in "you're just a cub. You don't need to know that."

In any case, Mark had now learned the basics of Garou language and how to shape shift correctly. Now, the next phase of his education was about to begin. This was the part Mark had been dreading, as he had learnt that this next phase would involve interacting with other "cubs" his own age. Mark did not like that at all.

"You're going to join the den father's brood and learn how to be a true Garou warrior," his Garou teacher told him as they walked to the area. It was in another part of Logan, in an ordinary looking house.

Mark dug in his heels and frowned. "Why can't I just learn one on one?" He was seventeen now, but still retained a lot of his youthful arrogance and ignorance.

"Because that's not how it works. You have to learn our ways as a pack. The other cubs and you will form a pack when you accomplish your Rite of Passage and officially become an adult."

Mark frowned again. "I don't want to be in a pack. I like being on my own."

The teacher looked at him then, staring at him in confusion. "You're a Garou. We are half wolf. Of course you like being in a pack."

Mark frowned. "I don't."

The teacher smiled. "Don't worry, it's probably only temporary. You're a homid, so you're probably not in good touch with your wolf self yet. It'll come." They arrived at the house. "Now you're going to meet some friends," he said as he opened the door to the house

Mark frowned again. "But I don't –"

That was as far as he got before the teacher pushed him inside. Mark fell inside the house flat on his face. Behind him, he could hear the cheery voice of the teacher.

"Bye now! Have fun!"

_You stupid little piece of..._ For a few seconds Mark was irrationally angry. He solved this by using a breathing exercise, breathing out anger and breathing in strength. It worked. Calmness returned.

The calmness, however, was gone as soon as he got up from his position on the floor and found himself surrounded by an odd group of people, sitting on the ground and staring at him intently.

There was about four of them, all in total, of different varying ages. Two of them weren't even human at all, but were in the Crinos form, the 9 foot half man half wolf monster. One of the Crinos forms was a glittering snow white, similar to the white furred dog headed monster that Mark had seen on the night of his First Change. The other one was a dirty mangy kaleidoscope of colours. It also seemed to have a cold as mucus from its nose continually dribbled down its face, despite the occasional snort, whilst its eyes were red rimmed.

The first one, the white furred werewolf, seemed to realize Mark was staring at it. It frowned and then snarled in a distinctly feminine voice and in the Garou tongue. "What are you staring at?"

Mark ignored the snarl and kept staring at the group. The third one was a blonde haired young boy, only about fourteen years old. Behind the group was a tall, wizened old man with grey hair. The most distinctive part about the grey haired man was his right arm, which was only about a third of the normal size and clearly deformed.

The grey haired man smiled. "Ah, you must be the new cub. My name is One Fist K.O..."

_What a stupid name_, Mark thought.

"_... _and I am the den father of the Sept of the Wolverine. Please, introduce yourself. What is your name, your auspice and your breed? You can recite your lineage as well, if you wish."

Auspice... Mark had to think about the question for a little bit, but soon he could hear his teacher droning in his head, some stupid thing about phases of the moon and predestined paths of life. Ah yes, now he remembered. "If I must. My name is Mark Allen and I am a human. I'm a lost cub so I don't have a lineage. I was born under a half moon, waxing. So I guess that makes me a ... pillow-ducks."

He knew he'd messed up when the little group descended into a mass of giggling. The den father smiled. "You mean a philodox."

Mark shrugged. "Yeah, that."

The Den Father nodded. "Nice to meet you, Mr Allen. Please, find a place to sit. You may sit wherever you like."

Mark chose a spot that ended up putting him next to the multi coloured Crinos werewolf. He'd actually chosen the spot because it was the furthest away from the rest of the group, not because he sought to make a friend. This, however, was not how the other werewolf saw it. It immediately shifted into human form, transforming into a light brown haired young boy with red rimmed blue eyes and a red nose that was continually running. He was also looking at Mark as though he was the second coming of the Messiah.

"You... you sat next to me!" the boy said in wonder. "Nobody's done that before!"

Mark stared at the boy strangely, trying to figure out just what sort of weirdo this kid was. Before he could say anything, he was hit head on with a dump of info as the boy began to ramble.

"My name's Ford Falcon, what's yours? I'm a Bone Gnawer Metis, I'm eight years old and my favourite colour is blue. I'm a Theurge, what's your Auspice? Oh, right, you said you were a Philodox. That's so cool! It makes you a judge! I'm a Theurge, which means I'm a mystical seer of the Umbra, isn't that cool? Oh, right, you already knew that. Yes, I know my name sounds an awful lot like a car. I like cars. Do you like cars? I live here in the Cairn of the Wolverine with my Den Father. He's a nice man. Are you a nice person? I hope you are because if you're not, the elder Garou will eat you. Let's be friends!" he paused for a moment to snort, spraying mucus in all directions. "Do you have lots of friends? I don't have any friends because I'm a Bone Gnawer and because I'm a metis, but you're really nice..."

And on it went, until Mark found himself coming down with a headache. Fortunately, the Den Father saved him.

"Now, now, Ford. Let's let the other cubs have a go at greeting the new cub. Everybody, tell him your name."

The other Crinos Garou, the white one, snarled angrily. "NO!" It was in English, a harsh guttural sound, a roar of complete rage and fury that suggested its owner wanted to bite Mark's head off.

The den father looked at the white Crinos Garou with a reprimanding eye. "Charlotte..."

The Garou growled. "I'm angry," she said in the Garou tongue. The Garou tongue was similar to a wolf's language, which struggled at subtlety. One couldn't simply shout in the Garou tongue, as it was made up mostly of body language and vocal growls and snarls. "I am of the Ahroun auspice, the mark of the warrior. I'm angry. Leave me alone. Go away."

The den father sighed. "Her name is Charlotte Jackson. Human names do not transfer well to the Garou tongue, you see. When you achieve your Rite of Passage, you will all be given a new name that can be spoken in the Garou tongue."

_What a nice person_, Mark thought to himself as he looked at the white werewolf. Somehow, the Garou knew what he was thinking and howled in anger. "Stop staring at me!"

The other human smiled and extended a hand. "I'm Matthew Riewoldt, a ragabash. It's nice to meet another homid Garou around here my own age."

Mark looked at the extended hand and back at the human. There was a short pause, before finally Matthew withdrew his hand awkwardly. He smiled nervously. "Okay...if you don't want to be friends I'll jut... um... sit here."

The den father didn't seem to notice. "Right!" he said with a smile. Let's get back to our first lesson: The Litany. This is how it goes..."

* * *

This was the Litany, a code of laws which Mark would find himself extremely familiar with over the course of the next two years, as taught by the Den Father with massive input from the rest of the cubs, especially Ford Falcon, who appeared to be a bit of a whiz at Garou culture.

"The Litany, in its original form, is a great howl-song that consists of the tribe laws, history, traditions and codes of the Garou. It has existed for millennia, all the way to the dawn of time. This is a condensed version, but each one of its laws is extremely important. I want you to memorise them all by heart.

"The first law is: Garou shall not breed with Garou. Within us runs the blood of supernatural power, blood that is so powerful it can overwhelm a body not ready for it. To breed with another Garou is a sin. Such a Garou is known as a Metis, and it carries with it forever the mark of Gaia's disfavour. Yes, I am a Metis, and I carry my disfigurement as proof of the sin of my parents." He pointed to his maimed arm. "Ford Falcon is also a Metis. His deformity is his weakened immune system. And Charlotte is also a –"

Charlotte snarled. "I am angry. Don't say it."

_You'd be a lot more articulate if you would just switch your form, _Mark thought to himself. _Why won't you? Are you unable, or are you just a stubborn fool?_

"... She is an albino," the Den Father finished carefully. "The second law is: Combat the Wyrm wherever it dwells and wherever it breeds. The Wyrm is our sworn enemy, the cause of all of Mother Gaia's ailments and pain. It is our sacred duty to combat the Wyrm and there is no greater honour.

"The Third Law is: Respect the Territory of Another. We are Garou, a creature of both homid and lupus. We must always ask before we enter the territory of another pack or sept. Within another's territory, their laws are to be obeyed to the fullest and to the letter. Remember, only the defender of a territory knows it best, and knows best how to guard it against any enemies. Eventually, all of you will become a pack of your own and will gain a territory for yourself. You will be required to mark your territory through urination and scent marking, just like any other Garou."

_..WHAT?_ Mark thought to himself. A momentary vision of him cocking his leg and marking his territory entered his mind but it looked so ridiculous he ignored it at once.

"The fourth Law is: Accept an Honourable Surrender. It is our sacred duty to combat the Wyrm, as the second law demands. Every death on our side only serves to make the Wyrm stronger. Eventually, as you advance in rank, you will enter into duels and honourable combat with your superiors to prove yourself. Some of you may have already done this. These duels must never be to the death. If you are victorious in such a duel, spare your vanquished foe. If you are defeated, bare your throat to your opponent so that he knows he has won.

"The fifth law is: Submit to those of higher station. Yes, you cubs may feel like you are the center of the universe and know everything. Your elders and superiors, however, have proven themselves through many battles and are thus wise in the ways of the world. Do not feel superior to them. Acknowledge your place is not to best, but to learn from those wiser. You would do best to study this law better, Charlotte."

"I am angry," the Garou snarled.

_I think I hate that girl, _Mark thought to himself.

"The sixth law is: The first share goes to the greatest in station. In everything, there is a culture of hierarchy. Each Garou knows their place and will receive what they have earned. Your alphas deserve the best for they have worked hard for their honours. Honour your alpha and he will honour you.

"The seventh law is: Do not eat the flesh of humans."

Mark blinked. _Nobody mentioned THAT before._ Obviously, the Garou weren't quite the angels they think they are. Mark, who had mostly been zoning out the incessant rambling of the Den Father until now, began to listen much more carefully. This Litany might actually be important.

"Humans are not fitting prey. Their meat poisons both the physical and spiritual aspects of the one who consumes it. As this next law states, we are all of Gaia. We are Gaia's protectors and humans are therefore under our protection. To eat the flesh of your kin invites the taint of the Wyrm."

Matthew raised his hand to ask a question. "I know it's not applicable to any of us here, but I've heard that some Garou are lupus born. How come the Law doesn't extend to eating wolves as well?"

The Den Father flinched uncomfortably.

_Interesting, _Mark thought. He could answer Matthew's question. Laws only existed if there was a reason for them to exist. Clearly, Garou have at some sort eaten human flesh, thinking of them as a lesser prey. Wolves, however, are treated differently in the Garou culture. The law doesn't say anything about eating wolves because nobody has thought of seriously doing that.

"That's . .. a good question," The Den father said finally. "The reason... um... is because... uh..." he paused for a moment, obviously to think up a good excuse. "The reason is because some Garou...a long time in the past... might have occasionally nibbled a few bites of human flesh here and there. Oh, only while the person was dead, of course. And it was during times of famine, where there was nothing to eat. They only did it out of great desperation. Eating the flesh of humans is a great sin. But to eat the flesh of a wolf, a fellow predator... that is a sin so heinous one couldn't live with it.

"Anyway, let me continue. The eighth law of the Litany is: to Respect those beneath you, for all are of Gaia. We are the world's protectors, but we must never abuse our power, lest those above us strike us down. This, of course, doesn't mean you should respect the Wyrm, because it clearly isn't of Gaia at all. So feel free to follow the second law of the Litany as much as you wish. This is another law you should pay attention to, Charlotte."

The white werewolf snarled again.

"The ninth law of the Litany is: The Veil must not be lifted. Humans do not know we exist. Our enemies are many, hiding in all different forms. Not all of them are the blatantly obvious Wyrm Spawn or Nexus Crawler. Some of them are subtle, hiding in the cities. Some even take on human form and are almost indistinguishable from a regular human. To rend the veil is to extend our throats to the Wyrm and invite him to bite.

"The tenth law of the Litany is: Do not suffer your people to attend your sickness. We are wolves, and we are a people of honour. There is no honour in dying from sickness, weakness or old age. The noblest death we must all strive for is death in battle against the Wyrm. There is no great honour."

"But –" Matthew waved his hands around, momentarily confused. "I've seen lots of old people. And you're... um... "

"Old?" The Den father said with a smile. "Yes, I am older. This part is very old, the oldest of the entire Litany. It has become outdated, of a sort. Now, instead of fighting the Wyrm, I defend the Caern and I teach the cubs. In this way, I perform my service to the Wyrm. When I become too old and sick, I will embark on my journey."

_Interesting, _Mark though. So, the Litany was not irrefutable. It could be interpreted and bent. Mark had no doubt that a law that could be bent would be bent for all it was worth, to the point that the result may not resemble the original law at all.

"Journey?" Matthew asked. "What sort of journey?"

"A journey that you young cubs don't need to worry about for a long time. But I digress. Now we come to the eleventh law of the Litany, which is: The leader may be challenged at any time during peace. A leader who reigns poor is not a leader that can be relied on. When you are in your packs, you may find that at times your leader may not be able to make the best decisions possible. When this happens, it is your duty to perform his tasks in your stead. Prove yourself capable by besting him in a duel. It is the leader's duty to prove he is capable of defending himself and leading the pack.

"Conversely, the twelfth law of the Litany is: the leader may not be challenged during wartime. There is a time for challenging your leader and in the middle of a battle isn't it. A pack will not win if they are fighting amongst themselves when danger approaches. The law of the pack and its hierarchy is there for a reason, to ensure you are the most capable fighting force you can be. Disrupting this hierarchy in the middle of a fight is dangerous. The word of the leader when in battle is irrefutable.

"Finally, we come to the thirteenth and final law of the Litany: You shall take no action that causes a Cairn to be violated. The Caern is the lifeblood of Gaia and the source of our spiritual powers. It is through the power of a Caern that we may cross the Gauntlet, make pacts with spirits and defend the Umbra from enemies. Without the Caern we would not exist. Anybody who dares to betray a Caern deserves to be slain without mercy.

"So," the Den Father said with a smile as he came to the end of the Litany, "that is the Litany. I expect all of you to study it thoroughly and to memorise each and every one of its laws – especially you, Mark. As a Philodox, you will become the judge of your peers. They will look up to you. Who knows, you may even become a pack leader yourself."

_No I won't_, Mark thought to himself. _Not over my dead body. _Mark was no leader and he wanted no part of a pack. All he wanted to do was go off on his own, unchained by bonds with another person.

_Bonds will only chain you back. Bonds will only bring heartbreak._

The Den Father was still speaking. "That is the end of the lesson for now. Study the Litany, because we will be having a test on the Litany in a short while. For now, I'll give you some time to talk with the new cub so you can set up your hierarchy. Find out where he fits in this little pack, if you wish. After this break, we will be working on other parts of Garou culture and the Silver Record. For now, class is dismissed."

The Den Elder got up from his seat and left the room. This left Mark to the mercy of the other cubs.

The white one, Charlotte, was the first to speak up and she immediately got right in his face. She was so close that all he could see of her was her enormous jaw and razor sharp teeth. Her breath was unbearable and Mark had to struggle not to retch.

_Good grief! What did you eat, a bucket of vomit?_

"Listen to me," the Garou spoke in the Garou tongue through the use of her tail. "I am Alpha of the pack. Do what I say. I am better than you, you are nothing to me. Do not cause trouble. Are you going to challenge me?"

Mark shook his head in between gasping coughs. _With that breath, you'd win any contest by asphyxiating the other combatant in a heartbeat._

Charlotte nodded. "Good. Know your place and there will be no problems." She turned her back on Mark and went back to her seat.

Matthew whispered from where he was sitting on the ground. "She's the worst, isn't she. It's because she's a Get of Fenris, you know how they all are."

Mark blinked in confusion and tried to remember his teaching. Get of Fenris. Now he remembered, it was a tribe. His teacher had spent a lot of time trying to make Mark experience visions of his past lives and of his ancestors in an attempt to make him remember what tribe of Garou he was a part of. Of course, nothing had come.

There were fourteen tribes of Garou – twelve members of the Garou nation, and two traitors to the cause. One of the traitors was the Black Spiral Dancers, who were the ones that had tried to kidnap Mark on the night of his First Change. All Mark knew about the Dancers was that they were of the Wyrm and were therefore to be destroyed. As for the other thirteen tribes, Mark knew nothing but the names. His teacher, and many of the Garou in this sept, were Fianna, Garou from the Celtic lands of Ireland and Scotland.

"Have you chosen a tribe yet?" Matthew asked. "My parents were Glass Walkers – my father was a Glass Walker Garou and my mother was a Glass Walker Kinfolk, so I'm planning to be a Glass Walker too. You're a lost cub, right? I guess that means you don't know what your parents were."

"I know what tribe he is," Charlotte snarled from in front of them, revealing that she was overhearing the conversation. "He's just a useless Bone Gnawer."

That got Mark's attention. "What's a Bone Gnawer?" he asked.

Matthew frowned. "Oh, you don't want to be one of them. Nobody likes them."

Ford smiled proudly. "I'm a Bone Gnawer! We should become Bone Gnawers together, like real friends! We can become a pack and become great Garou together! We can beat up the Wyrm!"

Charlotte looked at Mark carefully. "You'd be a perfect Bone Gnawer. It's the perfect place for an outcast lost cub like you."

Over the next few weeks, Mark studied the tribes. He quickly learned that being a lost cub, a male and a human of Anglo Saxon descent excluded him for a vast majority of the tribes. There was a tribe for everybody, but they were too idealistic for him. That left very few choices, one of which was the Bone Gnawers. The underdog. The riffraff of society. The useless people on the fringes of the world, who never fit in and could rely on nobody but themselves. The Omega of the pack. The losers.

They were perfect for him.

_I'm going to be a Bone Gnawer._


	6. Outcast

Chapter Five

_Feeling downcast, like an outcast. Underdogs, it's time to bite back._

_- _Outcast, by the Cast of Glee.

* * *

The education continued. Over the next two years, Mark and the other three cubs were educated in skills, talents and knowledge. For most of this education, Mark lagged behind the others. His past hobby as a boxer on the side helped him slightly, but he still found himself in trouble. The Garou way of fighting was fast, brutal and very much lacking in subtlety, something made blatantly obvious when the cubs were taught to fight.

The Den Father yelled. "Everybody, switch to homid! That includes you, Charlotte!"

It was quickly obvious to shifting to a human form was not something Charlotte did very often. As Mark looked on, she changed from a snarling white werewolf into a snarling white haired teenager with exceedingly pale skin. Mark was not a good judge of character beauty – Charlotte could have been an ugly hag or a stunningly beautiful enchantress and he wouldn't really know the difference – but behind him Matthew whistled. This could have been because she was exceedingly beautiful...

But it was more likely because she was naked.

"Charlotte!" The Den Father snarled. "Why didn't you Dedicate your clothes?!"

Dedication was a Rite, one of the first Rites Mark had learnt about. They were the Garou Nation's rituals, performed much like religious ceremonies. The Rite of Talisman Dedication was a particularly interesting one, that allowed one to Dedicate objects to their body. Any such item, once Dedicated, would be bound into the werewolf's form. Some items would change their forms along with the Garou, whilst others would simply vanish into a tattoo. Clothes were usually the first items Dedicated, but not always.

Again, as seemed to be the pattern, Mark had struggled with the Rite. He hadn't actually performed it himself, of course – a Garou of the Sept, known as the Rite Master, had done it for him. However, whereas the other cubs had managed to Dedicate all of their clothes, Mark had only been able to dedicate his pants.

Looking on Charlotte now, Mark nodded. Some of the Garou Nation's crazy rituals and religious hubbab actually did serve a useful purpose. Perhaps he should seek to learn more.

Charlotte stared at the cubs staring back at her. She tried to wave her tail to express her intense dislike of the situation, but instead only wiggled her backside. Matthew snickered. Mark himself remained completely expressionless.

The Den Father sighed and left the room. He reappeared a few moments later, holding a pile of clothes. "Put these on, Charlotte. It is polite for Homids to wear clothes. We will go later to the Rite Master and Dedicate these.

Charlotte tried to speak but found herself unable to do so. She merely waved her hands around frantically, but the body language was clear – she was seriously upset. She turned her back on the cubs and tried to put on the clothes, but it was clearly something she'd never done before and she had trouble. In the end, the Den Father assisted her. The whole experience was clearly very humiliating.

Eventually, with Charlotte finally decent, the Den Father announced the exercise. "Today, we are going to learn to fight in Homid form. I know most of you would prefer to fight always in Crinos form, but a Warrior of Gaia must be flexible and capable of fighting in whatever skin they wear. Choose a partner to spar against."

Mark was nearly run over by Ford Falcon running to him at top speed. "Mark-rhya!" he yelled.

Rhya. It was a part of the Garou language, an honourific of sorts. It meant "greater in station." Mark had no idea why Ford called him that. It was pretty irritating.

"Mark-Rhya!" Ford yelled again. "Let's be partners! You'll go easy on me, right? I know you're really strong and all. You can hit me as hard as you want, I'll be okay!"

"Good," the Den Father said. "Matthew and Charlotte, you'll fight each other."

"Oooh," Matthew said nervously. He whispered to Mark. "Hey, buddy. This Charlotte, she's bad news. She's like the nastiest, most evil fighter in history. You're my buddy, right? Let me swap. Besides..." he whispered even quieter. "She's a girl! I can't hit a girl! It'd ruin my rep!"

Mark shrugged. "Sure, I'll swap." It didn't really matter who he was fighting. Everybody was equally irritating and everybody had a reason to be punched in the face. The fact that Charlotte was a girl didn't enter his mind at all. She was just another opponent.

The two cubs swapped their positions. The Den Father noted this, but didn't complain.

"Alright... spar!"

Mark got into a southpaw stance, a boxing stance that led with the right foot and best suited his left handedness. Charlotte, on the other hand, was clearly feeling tremendously awkward. She now weighed less than a third of what she usually weighed and the difference put her off completely.

Immediately, Mark could see openings everywhere. He began to work his jab, shooting out right handed punches at her head. Charlotte was unable to fight back. She stepped backwards, trying to avoid the jabs, but her weight was putting her off and she fell backwards, landing on the ground.

Mark calmly waited her for her to get to her feet. Eventually, she did so, a look of pure rage and hatred upon her face. She couldn't talk, but then again she didn't need to – Mark could tell what she was saying. It wasn't pretty.

This time, Charlotte charged forward, hands out to the side as though they were full of claws. This made her openings even wider. Mark timed his shot carefully, then jabbed to her chin, stepping backwards as he did so. He didn't even need to dodge, or put any real power in his shots. Charlotte was doing all the work for him. For the second time, Charlotte overbalanced and fell to the ground.

She spent a long time on the ground this time. Mark did a count in his head and confirmed it was essentially a knockout. That wasn't really unexpected, of course.

What was unexpected was what happened next. Charlotte began to snarl, whilst still on the ground. Then she Shifted. White fur grew over her body, a tail sprouted out from behind her, her clothes ripped to pieces and fell to the ground around her...

Mark found himself facing the Crinos form, the half man half wolf 9 foot death beast. He suddenly had the feeling the fight had turned. He turned to the Den Father but saw the elder Garou was looking after the other two fighters.

He shouted. "Hey!"

He was going to shout "Den Father!" but he didn't get that far. Charlotte leaped to her feet and with an enraged snarl cannoned into Mark's chest with a right hook, razor sharp claws cutting through his flesh as though it was paper. Not only did it knock the breath out of him, it lifted him clean into the air. Strangely enough, Mark remained perfectly lucid, not even feeling any pain. He aimed carefully, and then aimed a left hook at the werewolf's head.

This proved to be a mistake as it made the Garou even angrier. He could read her body language now as she spoke in the Garou tongue. "I am angry. I will punish you. You have humiliated me."

She bit him, her teeth digging into the side of his body, almost biting him in half. Then she began to shake her neck, sending Mark flying back and forth as though he was a ragdoll. It was as though everything was happening in slow motion. Dimly he could hear someone shouting, lots of shouting, but none of that mattered.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Den Father shift directly into Crinos form. Then he felt himself falling through the air, falling for an eternity, before finally he hit the ground. The last thought he had before losing consciousness was this:

_Mental note. Punching an angry werewolf when you're just an ordinary human is a bad idea._

Thus did Mark learn of the healing regeneration ability of the werewolf. Aside from silver, which caused extra damage for reasons Mark was not aware of, a werewolf could regenerate nearly any wound. Despite possibly breaking numerous bones, rupturing various internal organs and generally being smashed into a pulp, within two weeks Mark was pretty much fully healed.

He spent the time in his Lupus form. He would have preferred to stay an ordinary human so that he could read whilst waiting to heal, but apparently the regeneration didn't work as well in your natural form. Instead, he spent the time in the company of the Rite Master of the Caern of the Wolverine, who was apparently a Philodox like him, who taught him Philodox things.

Almost all of it was unbelievably boring.

The Garou believed that the phase of the moon under which you were born dictated your destiny in life. It influenced your emotions, your way of thinking, your future occuptation, pretty much everything. They called this a gift from Luna.

As a Philodox, Mark was supposed to be the pack mediator – the judge, the lawgiver, the Master of Challenges, the tribal leader. They were supposed to be the balance of the pack. Sometimes, they even lead the pack. Well, this was all well and good as to what Mark was supposed to be... but what he actually was happened to be completely different.

Mark didn't want to be in a pack at all. The thought of living with other people, let alone leading them, twisted his stomach and made him feel uncomfortable and nauseous. Although he was indeed absolutely fascinated by his new found ability to shape shift (without agonizing pain!), he did not believe in the Garou culture, it's Litany or its religions one jolt. He may be stuck in the middle of nowhere for now, but the moment he reached civilisation Mark Allen would be up and gone. If that meant abandoning his pack, well, sucks to be them.

Yet Mark was a Philodox and therefore he must be honourable and loyal and respected among the Garou. He must believe utterly in its Litany because he is the one to whom all others go to when they are in doubt.

_What stupid crap is this?!_

Mark glared at the Rite Master. _I don't want to do this._

Yes you do. It is Luna's gift to you. It is Luna's destiny. You cannot ignore Luna's destiny.

_Luna's destiny can kiss my butt!_

No, don't be like that. You are a Philodox. Behave like a Philodox. Think like a Philodox. Act like a Philodox. Speak like a Philodox. Become one of us.

One of us...

One of us...

Mark wanted to know. "Can I change my auspice?" he asked the Rite Master.

The Rite Master stared as though Mark had grown a second head out of his little finger. "Why would you – what are you – how – " he was momentarily lost for words and could only wave his hands about wildly. "Luna's blessing is a blessing from LUNA! The moon goddess! How can you ignore that?! How can you take what Luna Herself has given you and smack her in the face?!"

Mark wanted to know. "Well, can you?"

There was a long pause. Finally, the Rite Master spoke. "There is a way. I can perform the Rite of Renunciation. You will effectively die. You will forget everything about your old life and be reborn anew. The moon under which the Rite of Renunciation was performed shall become your new auspice. But to perform such a deed is extremely dishonorable, for both the Garou performing it and the Garou subjected to it. I certainly wouldn't do it for such a young cub as you. Give your auspice time. It is Luna's gift to you. In time, you will learn to accept your role."

As soon as Mark was fully healed, the education continued. The cubs were taught all aspects of military strategy and fighting, from hand to hand combat to utilizing firearms. They even learned how to use old fashioned weapons like swords and axes. They learned stealth and survival. Again, Mark mostly lagged behind in this education.

Then the education switched to academics and Mark began to excel ahead. His human form gave him an edge over Charlotte and Ford, who had spent all their lives in the Caern, not exposed to any modern technology or "weaver tech" as they called it. But Mark quickly began to outshine even Matthew, the other human. His voracious reading and general intellect gave him quite the edge. He knew a vast array of subjects and could surprise the others with his knowledge, if he wanted. But, for the most part, he kept to himself.

The one part of the education he really did pay attention to was Rituals. There were multiple different types of Rites and as a Philodox he was expected to learn the Punishment and Accord types. From his Philodox mentor, he learned the Rites of Cleansing and the Rite of Contrition. The first rite was apparently to "cleanse" the area of Wyrm taint. Asking exactly what Wyrm taint was drew a puzzled glance and a long pause before answering.

"If somebody Senses Wyrm and they say that a place is tainted, then you use this rite to cleanse it." That was the only answer he received despite repeated variations of the original question.

The second Rite was the Rite of Contrition. Mark's education was only beginning, but already he was growing aware that the Garou nation had done _something_ in the past which had enraged a lot of people. Most of the spirits in that other world, the Penumbra, were really upset with the Garou for something. Most of them attacked on sight, but almost all of them hated the Garou. The Garou were also really stroppy and angry over something and often took this anger out on each other, necessitating the Rite of Contrition working on them to. Essentially, the Rite was an apology for offense. Mark found the Accord Rites most interesting and sought to learn more. He failed miserably, however, at learning Rites of Punishment.

* * *

Werewolves, by nature, were an emotional lot. Many of them were closely attuned with nature and the spirits, but all of them felt emotions much more strongly than an ordinary human. The most infamous of these emotions was Rage, of course. A Werewolf had great trouble controlling their temper at the best of times. Their Rage was so palpable that ordinary humans could sense it and instinctively drew away from the Garou, making a civilian life among other humans all but impossible.

But there were other emotions that a Garou felt just as strongly. The most malicious of these emotions was that of depression. Known as Harano, it was a life threatening condition that few Werewolves ever managed to fully overcome.

There was a knock on the door. The Sept Elder looked up her from her mountains of paperwork and growled softly. She'd been bombarded with interruptions all day, most of them for minor things and she really needed to get back to work. However, it was a Cairn Elder's duty to listen to her subordinates. She sighed.

"Enter", she said.

The door took a little while to open, but eventually it did to reveal a man who was actually only 26 but looked closer to 90.

The Elder was stunned. "Burke!" she immediately forgot about all of her hard work and stood up from her desk. "Are you alright? Do you need an Awakened Coffee? I can get one for you. How do you feel? I haven't seen you for years."

The death of three Silver Fangs had resulted in an upheaval of the Sept that was both dramatic and traumatic. There were 12 tribes now in the Garou Nation and the Silver Fangs had always ruled. Even in the Caern of the Wolverine, which was run by the Fianna, the Silver Fangs had constantly tried to take over control. They were constantly scheming, constantly ambitious. Only the fourth member of the pack, the Ragabash Burke Seeker of Secrets, had kept them under control.

When the Silver Fangs died, many rumors circulated. Three high ranking Silver Fang Garou deaths in exchange for one lost cub were deemed an unacceptable trade. Garou cried out for a scapegoat. They found one in Burke. Rumours circulated that Burke had abandoned his pack out of cowardice. Other rumors went further, declaring Burke had deliberately set the Black Spiral Dancers onto his pack in an attempt to rid himself of a problem. He was, after all, just a Bone Gnawer. Everybody knew Bone Gnawers were a dishonorable bunch.

As for Burke himself, the distress of losing three pack members in one mission was almost impossible to deal with. He had been in Harano for the past five years, barely eating, barely socializing with the other Garou. A Garou couldn't simply take an antidepressant to feel better. The same rapid regenerating quality that allowed them to heal from otherwise lethal wounds also rendered them immune to almost all drugs, medicines and diseases. It was possible to make a drug able to work on a Garou, by Awakening the spirit within it, but such a concept was used more for alcohol, cigarettes and other such drugs than for medical uses. Basically, the Garou way of dealing with someone severely depressed was to lock them in a strait jacket, remove all possible methods for suicide away from them, lock them in a room and wait for them to recover. Sometimes they even did. All this time, Burke had been in such a position.

But now, something had happened to give Burke hope for the future.

"Elder," he said with a thin voice, still weak from hunger. "I would like to announce myself as the Mentor for the lost cub, Mark Allen, Legacy of the Three Fangs."

Almost all cubs and young Garou had a mentor, a Garou that looked out for them specifically and offered them one on one training and advice. For most Garou, it was their parents. Less commonly, a spirit from the Umbra could look kindly on a Garou and agree to mentor it, usually in Chiminage for a past service by its ancestors. Or, an elder Garou could mentor a young cub. For Mark, who had no Garou relations or identifiable ancestors of note, this last option was the only one available.

Still, the Elder hesitated. "Are you sure about this, Burke? I don't want you to over stress yourself. You're still sick. You should focus on your own recovery."

"No!" Burke answered. "My pack died for this cub. Their deeds live on within him. They will serve as his ancestors and guardians in the Umbra. It is my duty as their pack member, to mentor him and raise him as they were destined to be." He nodded to himself. "His Rite of Passage is approaching soon and I've heard he has applied to join the Bone Gnawers. I will be his guide on his Rite. After that, I will look after his pack and raise them to be superior Garou. Please, Elder. Let me do this."

He looked at the Elder in the eye and spoke what his heart truly believed. "This cub is destined for great things, I know it."

The Elder sighed, and then nodded slowly. "Very well. I leave him in your hands."

* * *

Finally, the day came. After five years of education, the day had come for Mark to undergo the Rite of Passage and become an adult in the World of the Garou.

As was tradition, the opening of the Rite took place at a Moot, the ceremonial gathering of all of the Garou in the Sept. Not only the traditional attendees of the Cairn, but all of the packs that allied themselves with the Cairn, all of them had arrived. There was even a member of the Jindabyne Council, the elite of the Garou in this part of the world.

The Rite Master howled, long and loud, opening the moot. The air was filled with excitement. Too often the news lately had been depressing and dreary, bad news and bad omens. New cubs undergoing their Rites of Passage was always a cause for celebration, something badly needed in these difficult times. There were so few cubs nowadays. Every single one was precious.

In the other room, Mark and the other three cubs waited patiently. Mark sat in a seat and looked bored, whilst Charlotte in her human form paced angrily up and down. She had learned proficiency in the form now and had even learned to speak the human language fluently. She had even learned how to swear and curse. Nobody knew where this had come from, but rumors circulated that the Ragabash of the cubs, Matthew, had something to do with it.

"I can't believe this!" Charlotte snarled. She was still in human form, but she paced up and down and looked almost exactly like a predator on the prowl. "I can't believe I have to become a pack with you idiots!"

"Look, we're not exactly pleased with the arrangement either," Matthew snapped back from where he was nervously fidgeting. "We think you're loud, obnoxious, irritating, and loud – did I mention loud? But you heard the Elders – it's best to form a pack with other members your own age."

"Oh, shut up, Glass Walker!" Charlotte snarled, louder this time. "The Elders must be crazy. How am I ever going to gain power in a pack surrounded by Urrah?!"

Urrah – tainted werewolves. Commonly used to refer to Bone Gnawers and Glass Walkers due to their primarily urban living. In way, she was right. Matthew had applied to join the Glass Walkers, whilst Ford Falcon and Mark were joining the Bone Gnawers.

Charlotte turned on Mark now, who was still looking utterly bored. He didn't even look at her as she got into his face. "And as for you! What sort of idiot are you, to join a stinking tribe like the Bone Gnawers voluntarily?! What's the matter, Lost Cub? Nobody else care about you?"

Ford Falcon jumped to his feet and began to shift, his clothes bulging as he assumed the Near Man form. "Don't talk to Mark-rhya like that!"

Charlotte shifted her own form and pushed Ford back. "Oh yeah?! What are you going to do, mule!?"

Mule – one of a multitude of slang derogatory terms for a Metis, a child born of two Garou parents as forbidden by the Litany. Mark found the fact Charlotte referred to Ford as a mule amusing. Much as she hated to admit it, Charlotte was a Metis as well. Personally, Mark didn't really care what they were. He was an equal opportunist: all people, whether black, white, pink, purple or rainbow colors, where equally annoying.

The rip roaring fight between Charlotte and Ford was stopped just in time by a Cairn Elder poking his head into the room where the four cubs were waiting. "You're on in five, cubs," he said. "Just hold off killing each other for a few more minutes."

_Interesting, _Mark thought. It must be traditional for young Garou to argue with each other on their Rite of Passage. Maybe sometimes they didn't stop arguing for the life of the pack. Mark had been observing the other Garou and had noted that they were pretty quick to get angry at each other for very little reason.

Garou obviously thought they were superior to humans, but in the end they acted just like them.

* * *

"Alright, cubs," the Cairn Elder said five minutes later. "It's time to introduce you."

They followed him out into the main part of the pub, which was now absolutely stocked to the brim with Werewolves of all different shapes and sizes. The ones at the very front were mostly wolves, but some were yellow / orange like dingos, similar to Mark's own Lupus form. Behind them were humans in all different states of dress. At the very back were several Garou in the Crinos form. All of them were jostling to get a better view of the cubs as they walked to the center of the crowd.

Mark looked at the crowd with increasing unease and found himself shaking slightly. His heart rate had increased and his mouth felt dry, all signs of nerves. He didn't like being the center of attention like this. Instinctively, he looked around for escape routes and found none. If he wanted out of this, he would have to go through several people. That wasn't practical. No. It would be better to simply stay here and wait.

The Rite Master spoke. "I state the names of the cubs that are ready to undergo their Rite of Passage. Charlotte Jackson, step forward."

Charlotte stepped forward, trying to look her usual arrogant and confident self, but failing miserably. Mark noticed that she was shaking more than he was. Stuck in her Homid form as the Elders demanded, she clearly felt vulnerable and exposed to the crowd. Several jeers and laughs could be heard from the crowd, followed by jostling between different Garou as offenses were taken and tempers tested. The whole room felt like a powder keg about to explode.

The Rite Master ignored the tension in the room and continued to speak. "Ford Falcon, step forward."

Ford stepped forward solemnly, only to immediately ruin the mood by holding up his hand and waving. "Hello everybody!" he shouted, a huge grin on his face.

The Rite Master sighed; Charlotte nearly fell over, Mark nearly face-palmed and the crowd nearly burst into laughter. _What an idiot_, Mark thought.

"Indeed," the Rite Master nodded. A smile threatened to spread upon his face. "Hello yourself, Ford. Matthew Riewoldt? Step forward."

Matthew stepped forward, looking embarrassed. "I'm not related to him," he said, pointing at Ford. The crowd laughed.

"Mark Allen, the Legacy of the Three Fangs. Step forward."

_Again with that name_. When they weren't calling him Cub, they were calling him Legacy of the Silver Fangs. Three members of the Silver Fang tribe had died saving him from the Black Spiral Dancers on the night of his first change, and people were not going to let him forget about it.

Mark considered not obeying the order. He eventually decided it against it, however, and stepped forward, his arms crossed to avoid their trembling. Disobeying an order now would have consequences – loss of respect, people hating him, becoming an outcast in the Garou culture. This didn't really bother him, but it would mean that there would be people bothering him, so anything he could do to avoid that would be good.

The Rite Master didn't seem to notice Mark's hesitation and continued with the Rite. "Tonight, you are given to Gaia as her newest, as pups seeking entrance to the Mother's garden. Such a prize doesn't come easily, though. There are tests and trials, all to ensure that only those worthiest to enter may do so. In completing your Rites of Passage, I expect each of you to have an answer for the challenges I put toward you now.

"Charlotte Jackson. You have been a Garou all your life, knowing of Gaia's trials. You are Metis, born of a violation of the Litany. There are many here who believe you are weak, through no fault of your own. Now you must prove them wrong. Prove your strength by undertaking the Trial of Fenrir and join the tribe of your ancestors, the Get of Fenris."

Charlotte nodded, her whole body tensed and her teeth clenched. She accepted the challenge.

"Ford Falcon. You behave like an innocent cub, yet you have suffered much. Your are alike your pack-sister in many ways. You also bear the burden of being Metis, of your parents' sin. You are sick, ill constantly, constantly weary. Many believe that you are not capable of surviving as a Garou. Many believed in the past that you were not capable of surviving at all. Prove yourself. Prove yourself capable of surviving as a Bone Gnawer Theurge, standing on your own two feet."

"Yes, Rite Master!" Ford said with a smile. "I'll do my best!"

"Good. Matthew Riewoldt. You were not born into the Garou culture. In awakening to your true self, you felt that you knew yourself. But, did you really? Do you truly know your place in the world, as Gaia's child? Your task is to prove your wit and intelligence as befits a Ragabash."

Finally, the Rite Master turned to Mark. "Mark Allen, the Legacy of the Three Fangs."

_Stop calling me that._

"You are like your pack brother, new to the ways of the Garou. The way of the Garou has not been easy for you. Three Silver Fangs, three elder Garou, died to save your life. It is your duty to honour them in any way you can. You must be cleansed of your past as an ordinary human. You will undergo the Trial of the Rat. Rat will show you Gaia's plight and your place in it."

The Rite Master stared at Mark and Mark stared back. Eventually, he shrugged. "I accept."

"Good. Let all witness that Charlotte, Ford, Matthew and Mark have accepted their challenges and now seek their place in our ranks. Let them be tested and tried until they join us as full Garou. "

He raised his hands, even as a great howl went up from the assembled.

"I call upon the Guardian spirits of the Caern of the Wolverine, the spirits of Gaia's Rage and fury! I beseech you, to watch over these cubs on their Rites of Passage. Observe their progress. If they pass, let nobody doubt their renown!"

"Now, I call forth the mentors of the cubs, to begin their quests. Stand forth and let their quests begin."

Mark watched as Garou from the audience stood onto the stage to speak with the cubs. Most of them seemed to be relatives of the cubs, except for Ford, who was met by the Cairn Elder, the Irish woman of the Fianna Tribe Mark had met before. This seemed to be a problem.

_I'm just a lost cub. Who will be my mentor? Am I supposed to just sit here like an idiot?_

He got his answer when a pale, skinny man dressed in ragged clothes stood up from the audience and walked towards him. Mark didn't recognize the man, but that wasn't surprising – he barely looked anybody in the face, so he didn't recognize half the people at this pub.

The guy looked at him, but he looked almost through him, as though he was seeing somebody else. He smiled. "Hey there, cub. It's good to see you again."

Mark looked back at him quizzically.

"You probably don't recognize me. I was the Garou who saved you on the night of your First Change, the night my..."

His voice drew off and he began to shake, but only for a moment as he regained control of himself.

"My name's Burke, Mark. I'm a Ragabash, and a Bone Gnawer just like you want to be. I'm going to be the one to send you off on your Rite of Passage. Follow me."

Mark followed, gratefully leaving the crowd of crazy Werewolves behind.


	7. Rite of Passage

_Today, a boy becomes a man._

* * *

The Cairn of the Wolverine looked a lot different in the Umbra, Mark had to admit. Whereas the physical Logan was a tiny town in the middle of a wasteland, the Umbra version was wild and intense, a land of sweeping plains. It was always night time in the Umbra, but the sky was lit by a blazing red sun – Anthelios, the elder Garou called it. They called it the Eye of the Wyrm, but they wouldn't say why it was there or what it meant. Such questions resulted in them awkwardly changing the subject.

In the Umbra, the Cairn of the Wolverine resembled a great, grassy plain straight out of the prehistoric, complete with the animals to match. Massive Diprotodons and Giant Short Faced Kangaroos cropped at the grass, while Marsupial Lions stalked them. For the most part, the animals ignored the two Garou as they made their way through the Umbra, towards the Cairn's personal Moon Bridge. Using this Bridge, they could travel to another Cairn, anywhere in the world.

"You've made a good choice, a brave choice, my boy," Burke was saying. "Don't listen to the other tribes; they're too up of themselves. It's like they're the officers and nobility of the war, whilst we Bone Gnawers are the actual front line fighters. We're the ones who do all the hard yards.

"You've probably heard all the things they call us – believe me, I lived with three Silver Fangs for years, I've probably heard it all. Just remember one thing: In our tribe, it's not where you've come from, where you've been or what you've done in the past – it's what you do now. And that is something the other tribes, especially the Silver Fangs, will NEVER understand.

"By becoming a Bone Gnawer, you will doom yourself to being looked down upon and hated solely for the way you look and act. Nobody will ever appreciate you; you'll need to work three times harder for half the respect."

_In other words, _Mark thought to himself, _not really much different from how it is now._

"By becoming a Bone Gnawer, you will also become part of the most successful, toughest, strongest and deadliest sons of wolves to have ever existed. Your duties are not to the wealthy and privileged, but to the downtrodden guys who are just as good as the wealthy and privileged but just need a bit of a hand. "

_Yes, yes, that's all very well, _Mark thought. Instead, he asked the question that had been bothering him ever since Burke first asked him to follow him. "Where are we going?"

Burke smiled. "You're going to undertake the Bone Gnawer Rite of Passage, the Trial of the Rat. There's only one place good enough to take such a trial and that place is where we're going."

They walked through the moon bridge and emerged out the other end. They were now in a large city, surrounded by Pattern Spiders and webs – marks of humanity, Mark had learnt. Following Burke's lead, Mark stepped sideways out of the Umbra.

He found himself in the middle of a city like none he'd ever seen before. Surrounding him on all sides were skyscrapers so tall they blotted out the sun, draping everything in a dreary darkness. And the smog! It was so thick here that it choked the air. It was dark and it was dreary.

Mark looked about himself. "Where are we?"

"Oh, we're in New York city," Burke replied nonchalantly.

"New ..." Mark was stunned. He glanced behind him as if he still expected to see the Cairn of the Wolverine behind him, but saw only a building. "But we were just – how did we –". In the space of a few seconds they had travelled thousands of miles, halfway across the world.

"Power of moon bridges, little cub," Burke said with a smile. "Alright then, come here."

As Mark watched, the elder Garou focused on his right hand until it began to glow. Then he pointed at Mark's forehead and began to draw something.

Mark blinked. "What are you doing?"

"I'm drawing a glyph on your head. This is part of the Trial of the Rat. Now, listen up. To join the Bone Gnawers requires two things, an oath and a trial. We Bone Gnawers aren't too picky on who joins us, but they have to prove two things. First they have to prove themselves in front of the Rat Totem, the Guardian of the Bone Gnawer Tribe. They're mostly cool dudes, but they do have a stipulation: you can never harm rats or mice. You can't glue trap them, you can't mouse trap them, you can't sic cats on them, you can't tie penny bungers onto their tails and blow them up. Understand? Do you promise to never harm a rat, as long as you live?"

Mark shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

"Good enough. Second thing you have to prove is to us Bone Gnawer Garou that you've got the right stuff. This is where the Trial of the Rat comes in. You see this nice ugly city? I'm going to leave you here."

Mark blinked. _You're WHAT?_

"Yep. In a few minutes, I'll be gone and you're going to have to survive here for about a week. Don't worry too much, Rat will provide for you if you truly believe in the Totem."

_Clap your hands if you believe!_

"But you can't rely on anybody else. That glyph I put on will make humans hate you – as in, more than usual – and it will also show other Garou that you're working on your Rite of Passage, so they'll know not to help you. You're going to be here, on your own – food, water, sleep, you'll have to take care of all of it. Oh yeah, and that glyph is also going to make sure you stay Homid. We don't need any rending of the Veil whilst you're on your Rite."

Mark glared at him.

"Aww, don't look at me like that. It's not that bad. You'd be surprised how much the human body can survive. Believe it or not, you will not drop dead in one week just from a lack of video games. Oh, and remember: the spirits are watching. If you cheat, they'll let me know. Okay, seeya."

"WAIT!" Mark yelled. "You can't just leave me –"

"Yeah, I can, just watch me. Bye now!" Before Mark could do or say anything, Burke was gone. Mark stared at the spot where he'd just been standing in stunned shock.

_Son of a..._

* * *

At first, Mark's mind simply refused to believe what had just happened. He simply stood there, staring at where Burke had been, as though he half expected Burke to reappear out of thin air. Perhaps with a smile.

"Gotcha, kid!" he would say. "The look on your face! Priceless!"

But even as he thought this, he knew that it was not going to happen. Burke had made good on his word – he really had left Mark here in the middle of nowhere, without any resources or connections. A warm place to sleep, food to eat, a place to live – all of it was gone. The resulting feeling was akin to nausea. Mark felt sick to his stomach and was forced to sit down on the ground.

He analyzed he thoughts. Right now he was predicting catastrophe and freaking out, thinking that death was imminent. Such thoughts were of no use and he had to push them aside. He had to focus and prioritize.

_Right now, I have nothing, no food, water or shelter. Somehow, I need to acquire these things._

_I need to explore._

He stood up and began to explore the city.

It proved to be hard going – Mark's home town of Frankston had been a busy place, but it was nothing like this. It had been dark and dreary, sure, but there had still been the occasional splash of color from trees. Here there was nothing, just a uniform grey. Perhaps it was simply that Mark had been holed up in Logan for the past 5 years. Perhaps it was Mark's half wolf self. Whatever it was, Mark felt distinctly uncomfortable here, as though he didn't belong – no, more specifically, as though the City itself didn't belong here at all.

_But it does and there's nothing to be done about it._

The more he kept going, the darker and more dismal the place seemed. As he walked, he would notice the incoming person would move out of his way, sometimes even crossing to the other side of the street, trying to avoid him. As he walked towards a road crossing, where a whole bunch of people were waiting, he noticed how they kept glancing his way. When he arrived at the crossing, everybody took a step or two away from him. He was in a crowd of people, but he still felt alone.

Normally, he would have loved such a reaction. Not right now. He was alone and he was ... scared. Yes. He was frightened, occasionally on the verge of panic. All of the things he had relied on in the past were ripped away.

Burke had said the Rat would provide for Mark if he believed. But he didn't believe.

_Maybe I can break into a house and use it for myself? _Mark wasn't really someone for breaking the law. Aside from the occasional crime of getting into fights with other kids, he was generally a law abiding sort. Circumstances change, however.

It was a plan, but it quickly proved fruitless. There were security cameras everywhere, on every corner, plus a multitude of policemen. These policemen were armed with guns, unlike the ones back home, and they actually looked fairly intimidating. Back home, the policemen were notoriously useless - the worst they could do to you (unless you were black) was slap you with the equivalent of a wet noodle. Even then, you could probably sue them for assault and win. But here, the policemen were armed with guns and it looked like they knew perfectly well how to use them. Mark felt like he could be shot for simply looking at a policeman the wrong way. The feeling seemed to be unanimous among all the people – everybody here feared the police.

_So, maybe I can't break into a house. I can't go to a homeless shelter, as that would involve other people. I guess this means I'll be sleeping rough. Oh well. At least it's summer, I should be -_

A sudden realization stopped him cold – almost literally_. _He suddenly remembered that Burke had told him he was now in New York – presumably, that meant New York City, New York, United States of America - ergo, on the other side of the world. That meant that the seasons would be reversed. Summer back home would mean it would be winter here.

He bared his teeth at nothing in particular, seething inwardly. _Is this all part of the Trial, you jerk?_

He couldn't sleep out in the middle of winter in America and expect to enjoy himself. At the very least, he needed some sort of shelter to keep the rain and the snow off. Preferably, he would need a blanket or a mattress of some sort, to keep him off the cold ground. More scouting would be required.

He searched the city for about an hour, although he had no idea how long it was. He owned a watch, a highly expensive silver plated one he'd won in a competition, but the Elder Garou had confiscated it and handled it as though it were radioactive. Silver and werewolves, apparently, didn't like each other. Something to do with Luna's blessing or some similar mumbo jumbo. Anyway, that meant he didn't have any way of keeping time. Presumably there were clocks in the more densely populated areas of the City, but Mark was trying to avoid those areas. He didn't like crowds.

There had been profit in his searching, however. He found a small park in the middle of a residential area, complete with a playground set of swings and a slide. More importantly, it also had a drinking fountain and public toilets. This gave Mark both a source of drinking water and shelter against the weather. The public toilets were probably locked at night, which posed a problem. Mark didn't have any experience in picking locks and he wasn't allowed to shape shift. Burke, however, didn't say anything about traveling in the Umbra. Mark could simply step sideways into the Umbra, go where the toilets were, and step back.

So, that was two things sorted. But what about a mattress or food? Where could you get food without money and without help from other people?

_I need to find a place to get food. Then I can rob it._

He continued searching, until it finally occurred to him that he was walking straight past sources of food. The only problem was that the food was in the multiple rubbish bins that dotted the place. Mark stared at the bin. He examined himself. No, at the moment he wasn't hungry. At least, not hungry enough to resort to eating garbage. There was just something... undignified about it. All the cockroaches, and the rats and the mice and the possibility of food poisoning or rabies or the black death... Awful. He decided to look for another place to eat.

He found another place in the form of O'Tolley's, the fast food joint chain that was famous all over the world. Mark had eaten at the place in the past, but there was always something about their food that jarred at him. Was it the overwhelming quantity of fats and oils? Was it the non-biodegradable Styrofoam containers that everything was wrapped in? He couldn't be sure. There was just something about the place he didn't like.

But that was then and this was now. Maybe the food tasted better in a dumpster, or something. Mark opened up the dumpster... and was immediately assaulted with a smell that could not possibly exist except in the netherworld. He no longer felt hungry.

Mark continued to explore. He needed to find a mattress.

_Alright, Great Totem Rat. Provide for me and maybe I'll start believing in you._

Mark turned a corner... and there was a mattress, lying on the side of the road. It was old and disused but looked perfectly functional. Mark stared at it.

_Okay, thanks. I still don't believe in you, though._

He continued exploring for the rest of the day, which seemed to go on absolutely forever, before giving up on the day and heading back to the toilets. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't locked during the night at all. Feeling smart about his choice of lodgings for the night, Mark tried to go to sleep. It took him a while, but he eventually made it.

* * *

"Hey. Hey you. HEY!"

Mark Allen awoke to the feeling of someone poking him in the side with a foot. He tried to ignore it.

"HEY! WAKE UP, YOU PIECE!"

Now there was the feeling of someone grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him around. Reluctantly, Mark opened his eyes.

He found himself staring at a large crowd of unwashed men wearing tatty rags of clothing and holding weapons of all shapes and sizes. He looked up at them wearily. "What's the problem?" he asked, still half asleep.

"You think you can just walk here, into the territory of Crew-Crew?! Well, do you?"

"Yes," Mark replied, before rolling over and trying to go back to sleep.

"WELL YOU CAN'T!" The leader of the men grabbed Mark by the throat and lifted him clean into the air. "You've disrespected us!"

In between bouts of choking and suffocating, Mark looked down at the rude people who had awakened him with a disdainful eye. They must have been the local homeless bums. Then he saw that some of them were armed with guns and he sprang to full alertness.

_Damn idiots. I just wanted to sleep here, but now you morons have awakened me. I'll just have to go Crinos and kill you all._

Mark concentrated on shifting – but nothing happened. Wait – the Glyph!

The leader of the men dropped Mark and he fell to the ground, coughing. Before he could even react they were on him, punching and kicking and hitting him with bats and clubs and whatever other weapons they could find. In his normal human form, Mark had no magical regenerative qualities, no enhanced strength, and no special abilities of any kind. All he could do was wait it out until the idiots got tired of hitting him.

It took the better part of an hour. There were at least twenty members of the unwashed gang of idiots and when the first ten got tired of beating him up, they'd take turns and have a rest while the others beat him up. They seemed quite determined to kill him. Finally, they got tired of the beating and carried him out of the toilets. Then they carried him for a while, before dumping him in the street – presumably to die.

Mark found himself lying in the street, snarling to himself. _You could have at least let me keep my mattress, you idiots!_

Something flew through the air and hit him on the head – the mattress.

Mark sighed. _Thank you._ He waited until he was certain they had all gone before finally trying to move.

Everything hurt and nothing wanted to move really. He moved his head to examine his arms and found the bone poking through the skin of his right arm.

An open fracture. Awesome.

The rest of the injuries seemed to be merely bruising, something he could normally heal in a few seconds if he wasn't in his human form. His head was pounding, because he'd been punched and kicked there half a dozen times. He contemplated raising his head and struggling to his feet, but decided he was too badly injured. It would be better to just lie here.

_At least it isn't raining_.

At that exact moment it began to rain. Mark sighed and tried to go back to sleep

* * *

Somehow, Mark managed to survive the night, despite it becoming seriously cold, despite being seriously wet, despite being seriously injured, and possibly due to being seriously ticked off about it all.

When he awoke, he found himself on a busy sidewalk, surrounded by people. Nobody gave the badly injured youth a second glance, but that was fairly typical of places the world over.

He didn't know it was possible, but somehow he seemed to be in even more pain than the night before. He was stiff and he was sore, but most of all he was hungry, so he forced himself to get up, then head for O'Tolleys.

It took him a while, but he made it there. His broken arm hurt terribly, but he ignored the pain. He was now so ravenously hungry that he needed to eat, and the only food that he had found seemed to be in the dumpster outside O'Tolleys. With his one arm, he opened up the dumpster lid. With the other arm, he held his nose and breathed through his mouth.

The food was surprisingly not rotten. Many of the burgers seemed to be completely preserved. Mark reached for a burger and examined it carefully. It appeared edible enough and he shoved it in his mouth, trying not to think about the fact it was food from a freaking dumpster. He was just about to begin chewing when he realized that the burger was moving and squeaking inside his mouth. He opened his mouth, pulled the burger out and saw a rat chewing on the burger meat.

For a few stunned seconds Mark actually contemplated eating the burger complete with rat inside. He was that hungry.

Then he realized what was happening and he was so revolted that he nearly hurled the rat-burger into orbit, at the same time scrabbling away from the dumpster and dry retching. Then he practically ran to the park to get some water to clean his mouth out.

_Gosh Dang it to Heck!_

That's when it all became too hard. Going through this hellish trial, just to join a tribe he was only joining because he was forced to pick a tribe, joining the Garou Nation when he didn't even want to? He fell to his knees, still dry retching, feel horribly nauseous, and basically felt miserable. Oh yeah, and IT WAS STILL GOSH DANGED RAINING. It hadn't stopped raining since last night.

_I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm hungry, I'm injured, I'm tired, I'm sick . .. Dang it! DANG IT ALL!_

He could feel tears running down his face and he hated himself for it. In his head he could hear the echo.

_STOP CRYING, WEAKLING! STOP IT!_

He wanted to shift to Crinos and burn the city to the ground. He wanted to slay every living thing within a hundred miles. He wanted to yell his Rage to the heavens and have the whole world struck by lightning and burnt to a crisp. He just didn't want to deal with this anymore. Not with his arm, not with this City, not with the whole Wyrm thing, not with anything. He just wanted to drop off the face of the planet and die.

It took him a little while, about twenty minutes, before he finally managed to compose himself. He wiped his face to get rid of the tears with his free arm, then wiped his nose which had been running like a leaking tap. His eyes shone with determination and he gritted his teeth.

_I am not going to die here. I am NOT going to let this beat me._

He glared up at the sky.

_DO YOU HEAR ME, WHOEVER IS LISTENING? Is that all you've got?! A little rain shower, a broken arm, a rat and a small group of unwashed morons? _

_I am NOT going to lay down and die. I am NOT going to give into depression. You're going to have to try harder than that!_

"You HEAR me!?" Mark shouted, absolutely stunning the passersby on the street. "I AM NOT GOING TO DIE from this stupid trial!"

Somebody threw a shoe at him, knocking him half unconscious. "Oh, shut up weirdo!"

* * *

Mark spent four days without eating before he finally ate from the dumpster at O'Tolleys This time, there were no rats. It still didn't stop Mark from vomiting violently after he'd eaten. And that didn't stop Mark from immediately shoving more food in his mouth. This time it managed to say down.

During the nights, he spent the time sleeping on the streets. He soon learned the location of the homeless people and learned to keep away from them. There hadn't been any more attacks, but once or twice he'd spotted the "Crew-Crew" from a distance and laid low. He mentally told himself that this Crew-Crew would have an unfortunate accident the moment Mark got this stupid glyph off his head. He would kill all of them. He swore an oath to himself.

But that could only happen when he could shift again, so for now he had to swallow his pride. And plan. He passed the time by thinking, studying and planning.

On the sixth day he broke into a chemist because he was getting really worried about his injured arm. He had set the bone and put it in a splint and tied it up with garbage bags as best as he could, but in his human form he didn't have any of the Werewolf's famous healing powers. His current lifestyle was also not contributing to a sterile environment, and the wound was open and exposed to the air. It hurt a lot and Mark was becoming worried that it was infected. He knew that an infection could most likely kill him.

He had also stepped sideways into the Umbra to see what was going on. In the Umbra, he'd had a bit of a shock. His arm most definitely was infected. In the Umbra, the entire forearm from finger to elbow was black, oozing pus and leaking black stuff wherever he went.

He also noticed that he was being followed by a brightly glowing speck of light.

Mark knew what this thing was. It was a Gafling, a minor spirit allied to the Garou Nation, bound by the Rite Master and sent out to keep an eye on him. It was only a minor spirit, but it was there and there was nothing Mark could really do about it. He knew that it was there to ensure he played by the Rules of the Trial.

On the sixth day, Mark broke into a doctor's surgery at night by breaking down the front door. Alarms went off everywhere and Mark lunged for the antibiotics and the antiseptics. He ignored the pain killers and the hard drugs, but he did take the clean bandages to fix his arm more carefully. Then he had to run like hell before the police arrived and beat him up. He fled into the night with his armful of medication, until he reached his safe haven under a bridge with his mattress. He fixed up his arm as best as he could, but it still didn't look good and he began to wonder if it was going to fall off.

Finally, on the seventh day, the rain finally stopped. Mark sat on a hill in a park, watching people play on the swings, eating his lunch of god knows how old burger and drinking water, when finally there came a voice behind him.

"Crikey, kid – that arm looks bleeding terrible."

Mark recognised the voice. It was Burke, of course. He didn't turn to look at him, however, just simply kept staring out over the hill and watching the people on the swings. Observing, but not fully belonging.

"Kid? Mark? Legacy? Hellooo? You listening?"

Mark nodded. "I hear you. Do I have to go back now?"

Burke whistled. "Yep. How was your week?"

Mark sighed. "Terrible."

Burke laughed. "Don't worry, that's what it's like for all of us. The other tribes may think us Bone Gnawers love the City, but we find it just as hard to deal with as the rest of them. It really is like a Scab on Gaia, isn't it."

Mark sighed. _Not this Gaia religious stuff again. _"I guess so," he replied.

"Well, don't worry about it. You've passed the Trial of the Rat with flying colours." He tapped Mark on the head with a finger. "There – I've removed the glyph. We can go home now."

Mark stood. "Not yet. There's something I want to do first." He got to his feet and began to walk in the direction of the toilets.

Burke blinked. "Where are you going?"

Mark answered him. "There's a gang around here called Crew-Crew. They beat me up and broke my arm. I want to teach them a lesson."

Burke blinked for a moment, but then laughed. "Crew-Crew? Oh, don't worry about them; they're just a pack of Bone Gnawer Garou. They were just messing with you, kid."

Mark stopped, turned and blinked. "Really?"

Burke nodded. "Really. It was just a joke, so don't worry about it. Let's go home, fellow Bone Gnawer."

_So those people were Garou. That complicates things._ Mark's original plan of simply switching to Crinos form and slaying them all wouldn't work if they were Garou as well. He would have to be sneakier... stealthier.

But they would get their comeuppance eventually. He swore it.

* * *

Two days after passing his trial, with his arm still injured due to not healing correctly, Mark and the other cubs stood up in front of a group of Garou to complete their Rites of Passage.

"Charlotte Jackson, stand up," the Rite Master called out. "Your task was to prove your strength and loyalty to Gaia's plight. You did this by going into the very centre, directly into the path of danger. There, you confronted and defeated a powerful spirit of the Wyrm. You have proven yourself worthy. Remember, however, that we are all of Gaia. We are Garou of honour and wisdom as well as glorious."

The Rite Master stared directly at her. "I name you Lemon Bitters, Cliath of the Get of Fenrir and full blooded member of Gaia's warriors."

Cheers echoed around the room. "Lemon Bitters! Lemon Bitters! Lemon Bitters!"

The Rite Master held up his hand and signalled for quiet again. Then he turned to Matthew.

"Matthew Riewoldt. When I first met you, you were only just aware of yourself, only on the cusp of acknowledging your new identity. I sent you forward to prove yourself to your Auspice and to your tribe. You have done so, with flying colors. Remember, however, that you must never forget your old identity as an ordinary human. The skills you learnt will serve you well in your new life. As a Garou, you will forever be the walker between the worlds, of spirit and flesh, of human and wolf, of nature and the supernatural. I name you Walks on Wire, Cliath of the Glass Walkers and full blooded member of Gaia's Warriors."

Cheers echoed around the room. "Walks on Wire! Walks on Wire! Walks on Wire!"

_Some of these names are really weird, _Mark thought to himself. _What sort of monstrosity are they going to give me?_

"Ford Falcon..." the Rite Master began.

Ford raised his hand, then immediately held his nose to stifle an enormous sneeze. "Yeesh, Master?"

"Many believed that you were not capable of surviving as a Garou. Many believed you were not capable of surviving at all. They looked upon you and saw only weakness. However, you looked upon yourself and saw strength. True strength comes from the heart, not the body. You turned your greatest weakness into your greatest strength and proved yourself worthy."

The Rite master smiled. "I name you Valorous Sneeze, Cliath of the Bone Gnawers and full blooded member of Gaia's warriors."

Cheers echoed around the room, without a hint of laughter. "Valorous Sneeze! Valorous Sneeze! Valorous Sneeze!"

_That's the worst one yet,_ Mark thought to himself.

"Mark Allen, Legacy of the Three Fangs, stand up," said the Rite Master.

_Stop calling me that_, Mark thought to himself as he stood up. _It wasn't my fault those three idiots offed themselves. _

"You underwent the Trial of the Rat, spending a week alone in an unknown land far from home. There you endured hardship and misery, learning first hand of the pain and punishment Innocent Gaia has been subjected to by the humans. You saw the pollution and corruption. You felt the pain and woe. But instead of giving into despair or turning away from Gaia's plight, your eyes shone with icy determination and you persevered.

"I name you Warrior of Ice, Cliath of the Bone Gnawers and full blooded member of Gaia's warriors."

The sound of clapping was deafening and cheers echoed around the room. "Warrior of Ice! Warrior of Ice! Warrior of Ice!"

_Mark_, the newly named Cliath thought to himself defiantly.

_Not Warrior of Ice. My name is Mark._

* * *

Author's Note:

Alright, I'm going to admit that I was really tempted to just end it right there, instead of writing the rest of the story. Pity April fool's day isn't anytime soon.

Warning: The next chapter of Warrior of Ice might be a little delayed, as I'm due to head into hospital for a cholecystectomy, or gallbladder removal operation. As far as I can remember, I haven't been under anaesthesia before so I don't know how I'll react. If the next chapter comes out and it's anything near the level of the Harry Potter fanfic "My Immortal", then it's probably because I'm high on drugs. d

david. .7 : You are completely and utterly awesome for reviewing my story. *200 werewolves howl and break dance in your honor*


	8. The Pack

Chapter 7: The Pack

_Everybody needs to fit in to something. Even the outcasts._

* * *

One of the Elders held up their hand and signaled for calm, which was almost immediately achieved, before addressing the four newly honored Garou. "You have passed your Rites of Passage and are now full blooded members of Gaia's warriors. With his achievement comes new responsibilities and duties. We recommend that the four of you now become a pack. This will require you to both acquire a pack totem and a territory, as you should know from your studies."

Werewolves were half wolf and thus had many of a wolf's mentalities. They were social creatures (at least with their own kind, they were) and lived their lives as part of small groups known as packs. The bonds a Garou had with their pack were much stronger than the bond they had with their tribe or Sept, and as strong as or even stronger than the bonds they had with their families. A pack of Werewolves could combine resources and strength and fight much better than a single werewolf on their own, forcing even Mark to see the benefit of joining a pack. At least, there would be a benefit if one was actually going to believe in this whole thing and fight against the Wyrm and not abandon the pack at the first opportunity to go home, which Mark was planning to do.

Werewolves were also half spirit. They traveled both the physical world and the Umbra, the latter of which was extremely dangerous. To survive, a pact needed to be made with a powerful spirit, a Pack Totem, who would agree to fight alongside and protect the Garou in exchange for services and loyalty.

Finally, a Werewolf needed a Territory, a place to live and a place to protect.

The Elder continued speaking and dropped a bombshell. "If you do decide to become a pack together, then the Elders have decreed that we introduce an additional member."

Matthew blinked "What – there's a new person? Like us? But we didn't see anybody else our own age in the Sept, or anywhere."

"This additional member is not from the Cairn of the Wolverine, or indeed even from this land. You may think of her as ... an exchange student. You will meet her tomorrow. But for now..." the Elder turned to the crowd of Garou watching and raised his hand. "We celebrate!"

Everybody in the crowd immediately transformed into 9 foot nightmare walking death beasts and began to party. Loud disco music began to play and werewolves began to do something vaguely resembling break dancing, except that it involved a lot less dancing and a lot more breaking. Mark, who was still in his ordinary human form, stared first at his partying fellow Cliaths, then stared at the crowd of partying werewolves in disbelief.

_WHAT._

"Come on, Warrior of Ice!" Matthew called to him from where he was dancing. "Let's celebrate."

"No," Mark answered him as he began to look for a way to escape. The loud music made it hard to think and all of the Garou dancing made him uneasy. He wished he was an immortal deity with the power to kill the lot of them.

Outside it was quieter, thank goodness. Logan was a small town, consisting of little more than the pub and surrounding farmsteads and houses, but almost all of its population was Garou born. That did not, however, mean that all of them were actual Garou werewolves. In fact, the vast majority of the people were not capable of shape shifting at all, but were little more than ordinary humans. These people were called "kinfolk", and Mark was only just beginning to learn of the deep divisions between the Garou and their so-called kin.

Mark walked through the streets up to a certain house. Normally, he'd keep to himself and wouldn't bother anybody, but this was important. In the hours since his return from New York earlier that day, nobody had attended to his arm, despite Burke worrying about it. Everybody was too busy preparing for the celebration and drunken partying feasts to care. Now Mark needed medical attention and apparently Kinfolk lived at this address, one of whom was a doctor. The other Garou had assured him that this man was available 24 hours a day for a Garou. Mark put his ear on the door and listened inside. It didn't sound promising – the people inside were definitely awake, but it sounded like they were partying as well. He could hear loud music playing, and the sound of people laughing. Mark sighed, hoped they were not too drunk, and knocked on the door.

Almost immediately he could hear shouting from inside the residence. The house, which had previously been loud and rowdy, suddenly became deathly quiet as the music was turned off and everybody inside the house froze. Mark strained his ears and could hear hushed whispers, but he couldn't tell what they were saying. Eventually, the door opened a crack.

"You're one of them," said a voice. There was no hello, no greeting. The voice was straight to the point and tinged with scorn.

Mark thought for a moment, thinking up several different replies, but eventually decided to ignore the statement. "I heard there was a doctor living here. I broke my arm a few days ago and I need it looked at." He raised his injured arm to show it off.

A second voice called out from behind the door, this one much younger. "Don't listen to him – it's just a trick! They can heal themselves!"

The door closed for a moment and sounds of an argument could be heard. Finally, the door opened up again, to reveal a tall, dark haired man with a short beard. "Fine. Come in and follow me. Don't go anywhere I don't tell you to go. "

_This man doesn't like me,_ Mark thought. Almost immediately, he realized that statement was not quite correct. He could tell it in the way the man stared at him, the nervous glances towards the far rooms. _No. This man is afraid of me. Why is that?_

The man led Mark to a room that seemed to double as a doctor's clinic for wounds. A medical bed was in the centre, surrounded by cabinets full of medical supplies. The man ordered Mark to sit on the bed, which he did so. He then examined the arm carefully.

"Who set this?" he asked after a while.

"I did," Mark replied.

"I can tell. It's a horrible, amateurish job and you've done it all wrong. The wound's infected and it won't heal right as it is. I'll need to re-set it completely or you'll never be able to use your arm right again. It's going to hurt. That okay with you?"

Mark nodded. "Go ahead." _Go ahead and take all your anger issues about Garou out on my arm._ He didn't even bother to close his eyes, didn't even blink as the man grabbed his arm and pulled it in various directions, pulling bones and ligaments into proper alignment. Oh sure, it hurt, but that was life. The pain wasn't important.

There was something Mark wanted to ask, however. "You don't like the Garou. What did they do to you?"

The man stiffened and cast an unconscious glance towards the far rooms. "It's – it's nothing. I serve the Garou with honor." He spoke as though he was reciting a script, speaking by rote instead of from the heart. "The Garou serve me honorably and I serve them honorably."

_You're lying_, Mark thought. He decided to press the issue. "Are the Garou good people?"

"No," the man replied. Almost immediately he nearly panicked. "AH! I mean yes. YES! They're wonderful people. They're saving all of humanity from the Wyrm. They are beloved of Gaia." He finished bandaging Mark's arm. "I've finished with your arm now. You can leave now."

Mark knew exactly what the man was thinking. _You can leave now. Please, please leave! And never come back!_

"Thank you for helping me," Mark told the man. "Farewell."

He left the house behind. Almost as soon as he was out the door, the music started up again.

* * *

Dawn came to reveal a half trashed pub, with several bleary eyed werewolves sprawled everywhere. In the bunks where the Cliaths used to sleep, several Garou lay face down in their beds, with pillows stuffed over the ears, trying to block out the light. Mark was one of the few who had not drunk copious amounts of alcohol the night before and was thus the only member of the group of newly passed Garou who was up at 10:30 in the morning, which was when an elder male of the Sept sneaked into the room and gave an enormous howl, waking everyone up.

"Come on, come on!" He yelled. "Rise and shine, cubs!"

Matthew Reiwoldt groaned in bed and flailed. "We're not cubs anymore. We graduated yesterday. Or, did we? I can't remember..." He held his head, feeling a headache coming on. "Oooh, the light's so bright..."

"Just shift form and your body will regenerate the toxin." The Elder told him. "Don't tell me a little alcohol is all it takes to knock you flat! I thought you were a warrior of Gaia!"

"Fine, Fine, I'll get up!" Matthew moaned. "Just as soon as the room stops spinning..."

Wish some persuasion and some shifting between forms, the Garou were up and out of bed and in more or less a conscious state. They assembled outside their room as per the Elder's instructions.

"Listen here," Charlotte told the other three. She was back in her natural Crinos form, all the better to look intimidating in front of the others. "We will be forming a pack together. I'm Alpha. You all agree?"

Ford blinked. "Actually, I think that Mark-rhya should be –'

The Crinos bayed at the others, snarling and growling and baring her teeth. "I AM ALPHA of the pack. Does anybody wish to challenge me?"

There was a long pause as Ford, Matthew and Mark looked at each other. Mark shrugged.

_It doesn't matter who's in charge. I'm going to abandon you at the drop of a hat, anyway._

"Good," Charlotte growled.

"Okay," Matthew said eagerly. "But we need to come up with a cool name for our pack. How about... Super Mutant Ninja Werewolves!"

The other three stared at him. _Super Mutant Ninja – What?_

Charlotte shook her head. "No. We will call ourselves the Children of Fenrir. That is my decision, and as alpha you will all agree."

"Hey!" Ford yelled. "We can't just name ourselves after an Incarna Spirit without asking their permission! We have to first ask them if they'll be our Totem."

"Exactly," Charlotte told him. "Great Fenris Wolf is already my tribe totem; therefore he should become the pack totem. With my personal guidance, I will lead this pack to become the greatest pack ever. Of course he will agree to become our Totem."

_You are absolutely full of it_, Mark thought to himself. _You're rude, you're obnoxious and you're arrogant. You're not my problem, though._

There was a bark from further up the road. The new pack looked up and saw one of the Elders of the Sept walking towards them. Behind him strode a dark figure that looked a lot like a large canine.

"Is that..." Matthew strained his sight, trying to look. "A Lupus? Our new packmate is a Lupus?"

Lupus – a Garou born as a wolf. There were three breeds of Garou, representing what they'd been before they experienced their First Change: a homid, a Metis and a Lupus. Despite the wordings of the Litany, Mark had noticed that the vast majority of Garou he'd seen all appeared to be Metis Garou, the spawn of two werewolves. Slightly less common, but still numerous were Homid Garou like himself, werewolves born as ordinary humans. Rarest of all were the Lupus, or Wolf-born Garou. As the Elder and the Lupus grew closer they could see that the Lupus was indeed a wolf, with coal black fur and glittering yellow eyes, not like the Lupus at the Sept that were closer in colour to dingoes or feral dogs.

Then, as the Elder and the lupus got even closer, the Lupus turned to the right. And there, on the wolf's left side, was a shock of blazing red fur in the shape of three diagonal marks, as though it had been slashed on the side and the wound had never healed.

"Ooooooh..." Matthew whispered. "That's bad news, mate. It's a Red Talon!"

"A Red Talon!" Ford Falcon hissed. "Our new pack mate is a Red Talon?!"

Even Charlotte seemed shocked by this development. "Why is it here? Why us?"

Mark had learned from his teachings that there were 12 tribes of the Garou Nation, each originating from a different part of the world and each with a different outlook on life. Most of the tribes were favourable towards humans. But there was one tribe which consisted solely of wolf born Garou. It pushed forwards wolf rights and wolf politics. It possessed the most extreme views against humanity, believing them responsible for causing the world's ills and deserving to be slaughtered to a man. There was one tribe that hated all humanity.

That tribe was the Red Talons. And now one of their tribe had joined the newly formed pack.

If the Elder noticed the tension rising in the area, he took no notice of it. "Ah, the very group I was expecting to see. Have you made your decision?"

There was a short pause, before Charlotte realized what the Elder had said. "We have decided to become a pack together," she spoke finally, never averting her eyes from the Lupus for a second.

"Good, good," the Elder nodded. Beside him, the Lupus stared back at the pack emotionlessly. "The other Elders of the Sept and I have decreed that this will be your final pack member." He turned to face the Lupus. "Her Homid name shall be Rita Wolf."

The Lupus stepped forward and spoke in the language of wolves. "Know me. I am Hunts With A Single Claw, Lupus Ahroun and Cliath of the Red Talons."

"Another Ahroun..." Ford whispered. "Now we just need a Galliard and we'll be a full pack."

The wolf continued. "I do not know you. Tell me your names."

The four Garou introduced themselves in the Garou traditional way of name, breed, auspice and tribe. The Lupus showed no real reaction, even when Mark referred to himself not by his Garou name, but by Mark Allen. Everybody else used their Garou name, however.

"Now I know you," the Lupus spoke. "Know me. Know that I pledge my fangs, my body and my life to this pack until the day of my death. Know that I will never abandon you. Know that I expect the same of all of you."

"Excellent," The Elder smiled cheerfully. "I'll leave you to get acquainted, then." And he walked off. As soon as he was out of the picture, the arguments and the confusion started.

Charlotte started off the proceedings. "Listen to me, Hunts with a Single Claw. I'm the alpha. You do what I say. Understand?"

The wolf looked at the nine foot Crinos monster without a trace of emotion. "I understand but I do not agree. Prove yourself. I challenge you."

For a moment, Charlotte was caught speechless by someone actually challenging her authority. Then she bared her teeth in barely concealed Rage. "I accept your challenge. I challenge you to a duel, your Lupus form against my Crinos form."

The wolf's yellow eyes glinted. "I accept your challenge." Then they both turned towards Mark.

Mark blinked. _Why are they staring at me?_

Several awkward minutes passed, before finally Charlotte lost her patience. "Are you going to approve this challenge or not, Philodox?"

_Oh, right. _Mark remembered now. _I'm supposed to be a judge and a referee because I was born under a certain phase of the moon. Garou mysticism again._

He sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I approve the challenge in the spirit of Garou tradition and all that." _Boooring._

"I give the wolf ten seconds before it drops. If it survives longer than that I'll surrender. Are the conditions of the duel agreeable?" Charlotte asked.

Mark shrugged again. "Yeah, they're agreeable."

Matthew blinked. "You sure about that, Warrior of Ice? It's a nine foot half a ton death beast with gigantic claws and teeth versus an ordinary wolf. You're not biased, are you?"

Mark shook his head. Being in their breed forms meant they were in the forms most comfortable for each of them. They knew their forms inside and out. Besides, who wouldn't want to see a death match between a werewolf and an ordinary wolf?

There was another long awkward pause, before finally Charlotte poked Mark again. "Are you going to signal this duel to start?"

Mark shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Begin."

He could tell from Charlotte's body language that she was supremely confident. She held her tail high and her posture was strong and defiant. In her Crinos form, she believed she was invincible.

Mark had never seen a wolf in real life before now. Matthew had seen wolves, but only at the local zoo. Ford had lived in the Sept all his life and had seen Garou in Lupus form. But none of them had ever seen a wolf move as fast as this one did.

It was like a blur. One moment the wolf was crouched and cautious, and then as Charlotte lunged towards it with teeth bared and claws extended, the wolf had vanished. It jumped, far higher than any wolf had a right to jump, clean over the top of Charlotte's head, before landing behind her. Then it lunged, jaws extended, to clamp around her throat. The whole maneuver had taken less than a second.

Charlotte howled in rage and fury. The wolf's bite was not hard enough to badly injure her, but it still hurt, both physically and mentally. She whirled around and around, trying to dislodge the wolf from her neck, but to no avail.

Charlotte's fighting style was all out attack – the best defense, in her opinion, was a good offense. Anybody with a little bit of combat sense could see straight through her weaknesses. The Lupus form was the most agile out of all of the forms, making it a simple matter to dodge the initial charge and exploit her openings.

_The battle went just as I thought it would, _Mark thought to himself.

Ten seconds went by, then twenty, and still the Wolf held on. Finally, Matthew poked Mark in the ribs.

Reluctantly, Mark was forced to stop the battle. "She's defeated you, Charlotte. Give up."

Charlotte howled in Rage. For a moment, it looked as though she was going to go into a Frenzy state again, like she had when Mark beat her up in fighting practice. Finally, she lay on the ground and tapped on the ground, signalling a submission.

But the wolf didn't let go. In a flash, Mark realized what had happened. "Single Claw, stop," he told the Wolf. When that didn't work, he shifted his own form to Glabro, the near man form, then ran into the fight, grabbed the wolf around its waist and pulled it off Charlotte. His ordinary human form didn't possess the physical strength he needed to grab hold of a struggling wolf.

The Wolf let go of Charlotte but continued to flail around in his arms, snarling and biting. "Let go of me, APE!"

"Calm down," Mark told the wolf. "The ten seconds are up and Charlotte surrendered by tapping on the ground."

"I do not accept her submission," The Wolf growled, still struggling. "She did not lie down and bare her throat in the proper form."

"I know," Mark nodded. "Tapping out is a gesture based on human signals. You probably didn't understand it. The battle is over. You've won."

Finally, the wolf stopped struggling and Mark set her down on the ground, returning to his normal human form. His forearms were covered in cuts and gashes from her scrabbling claws and biting teeth, but he ignored the pain.

Charlotte struggled back to her feet, cursing, the wounds on her neck already mostly healed. "Let's make it two wins out of three."

"Oh, what?" Matthew frowned. "You sore loser!"

"Mark-rhya, you should challenge her now," Ford offered. "You're a way better fighter than all of us."

Mark shook his head. _It doesn't matter who's in charge. I'm going to abandon all of you the first moment I get, anyway._

Single Claw turned to Charlotte and glanced at her nonchalantly. "Stay down," she told the other Garou. "Do not lose your honor for making stupid challenges."

Charlotte snarled. "I won't lose any honor if I beat you. Let's fight another duel. A staring contest." She began staring into the wolf's eyes.

"That won't be necessary," said a voice from behind them, "because I am going to be your leader for the time being."

Everybody turned around to see a skinny, sandy haired man in old jeans and a tattered top. "My name's Burke, for those who don't know," he said with a smile, "And my assigned job is to babysit you Cliaths for a little bit, to ease you into Garou society."

"We don't need you," Charlotte told him. "We're already adults – we passed our Rites of Passage. We already know everything."

"Sure you do," Burke answered, nodding. "That's why you're already arguing amongst yourselves and at each other's throats. Oh sure, that's normal Garou life in a pack, and you're still setting up your hierarchy – your pecking order, so to speak. But these days, we don't have the time to simply wait for a pack to sort itself out. We need Garou ready as soon as possible."

"But why?" Matthew asked. "Why all the rush? Ever since I arrived here, it's felt like people have tried to rush me, make me a Garou as fast as they can? They trained me to fight and pointed me at an enemy called the Wyrm, but nobody will tell me why we need to fight."

It was Ford who answered his question. "You're homid, therefore you don't know: The world is about to end."

Mark blinked. Single Claw stared at the ground. Burke nodded solemnly and Matthew's mouth dropped open. "It's going to WHAT?"

It's called "The Prophecy of the Phoenix," Burke explained. "But to first understand the Prophecy, you need to know the secrets of the Wyrm and the Triat. This is important information, not something we simply hand out to homid cubs willy-nilly."

_Again, proof that the Garou do not trust humanity,_ Mark thought.

"What is the Wyrm? It is one of three forces of nature. The Wyld is the force of chaos and creation, the Weaver the force of stagnation, order and law. Originally, the Wyrm was little more than balance and neutrality, the force of nature that regulated the flow of the other two, preventing each from becoming too powerful and disrupting the balance."

"But now, the balance is lost and the world is dying," Ford said with a mournful voice.

"It is dying because of what the humans have done," Single Claw spoke.

"Indeed it is," Burke nodded. "For years, the three forces were in balance and all was peaceful and good with the world. We Garou were the greatest of Mother Gaia's creations and it was our task to protect and serve humanity and the wolves alike. But the Weaver hungered for more and more power for its chosen species, the humans. When the Wyrm tried to stop it, the Weaver trapped it within its web of patterns. The Wyrm went insane."

"Seriously?" Matthew asked. "A force of nature went insane?"

"It did. The balance was irrevocably damaged, tilted in favor of the Weaver. The Wyrm, instead of seeking balance, now seeks destruction and decay. It seeks to destroy all of existence. Thus did Mother Gaia give us our new and sacred task: to destroy the Wyrm, mercy killing it before it can break free of the pattern web.

"The Wyrm is the cause of the state of the world we're in now. It's the cause of all death and suffering. But at the moment we are only witnessing a tiny sliver of the Wyrm's power. What sort of horror and destruction would happen were the Wyrm to break free of its prison?"

Matthew shrugged. This discussion was too deep for him to fathom. Whilst Single Claw and the two Metis Garou were nodding earnestly, Mark and Matthew were completely in other their heads and barely able to comprehend the situation.

"So we come to the Prophecy of the Phoenix, which details six signs before the final sign, the time when the Wyrm breaks free of its prison and destroys all of existence. It is the belief of many that five of these signs have already appeared and we are merely awaiting the arrival of the sixth."

Burke stared at Mark and Matthew.

"There is no more time to dilly-dally around and go through this leadership teething process. There is no more time left."


End file.
